The Second Coming
by Muphrid
Summary: Two years after Instrumentality's end, a new Angel threat rises, and Shinji Ikari comes out of retirement to train the next Eva pilot.
1. Two Years Later

**Two Years Later  
** _Chapter One **  
**_

People ask me, sometimes, if there's anything I regret about my life. I try not to have regrets—or if I do, I try to learn from them, to learn how not to make the same mistakes. "But is there anything you would change?" they say. "Is there anything you wish were different?"

There was one thing, actually. I used to wish I could pass people on the street without being noticed. I used to wish I could make eye contact with a stranger and just walk on by. I used to wish I could meet someone for the first time without them saying,

"You're that boy…."

 _That boy._ They might not have known my name, but they knew my face. They knew what I looked like and how I carried myself, and the glint of recognition in their eyes—it was unmistakable.

Like me, I guess.

But you see, some things can't be put behind you just because you'd rather forget. I learned that well one day.

I was working in a soup kitchen at the time. We were chronically short-staffed, with people coming and going on a daily basis. We had people burn themselves on the pot handles or pour out too much stock for a given meal. That was the way things were. We had people come in with the qualifications to be literary critics or materials scientists. That didn't help them learn how to bring broth to a simmer.

The newest recruit was a middle-aged man named _Taniguchi_. I met him on an afternoon shift at the kitchen, and his eyes lit up.

"You're that boy, aren't you? You are!"

I sighed, shook my head, and said, "My name's Nakai. Nice to meet you. Do you understand?"

He nodded eagerly, beaming. It was like how, if you told a friend in school that you were interested in a classmate—that you liked her—and asked them not to say anything, they'd smile and nod and grin at you knowingly. Taniguchi's smile was like that.

"So, what do I need to do, uh, Nakai?"

He learned fast, too—not just what to say, but how to cook. He may have been unkempt—with a scraggly beard and disheveled hair—but Taniguchi cared for the soup gently, moving the ladle with deliberate caresses as he stirred.

"It's not bad, you know?" he said, once I showed him the ropes. "It's nice to make something other people will appreciate."

I laughed to myself at that. "You haven't seen the ingredients."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

I tore open a gray paper packet and dumped the contents into the broth. Dried seaweed floated in a clump on top of the broth, and a few cubes of tofu followed.

"You're kidding," he said, scoffing.

I opened a cupboard, showing him dozens of those gray paper packets.

"Take five more of these per pot. That's the standard batch."

He shook the packet with two fingers. "How many people is this pot supposed to serve?"

"Thirty, if you can stretch it that far."

Shaking his head, Taniguchi tore open another packet and stirred the seaweed and tofu into the pale yellow broth.

"Didn't used to be this way…," he muttered.

He was right about that. It didn't used to be that we had to stretch out instant soup packets to feed the hungry. It didn't used to be that a boy not even out of high school and a salaryman would cook up soup for people in a school kitchen, but that was reality. We were two men in a spacious, shiny middle-school kitchen, surrounded by polished steel stoves and ovens. The white fluorescent lights cast a glare from those surfaces, as though the past itself were looking back at us with an unwavering gaze. If you looked hard enough, you might see the distant memories of children stopping by to pick up lunches and chat with their classmates. They would've eaten just through the double doors to the cafeteria, day in and day out, never paying any mind to the food service workers in the kitchen.

As Taniguchi tended to the soup, I peered through a tiny, circular window in the double doors. There were few children in the cafeteria that day. There were mostly adults in rags or tattered clothes. Open sores and boils festered on their skin. A stereo in the corner played a tape of '70s pop music. A couple people rocked to it, but mostly, the patrons stared at the cafeteria walls, thinking nothing and feeling nothing.

"Ah, Nakai? I think the soup is ready? What do we do now?"

Taniguchi leaned over the steaming broth and turned his head sideways, watching bubbles form on the surface.

"It _is_ ready, right?" he said.

I looked over the edge of the pot and nodded. "You can take it outside. Bowls should be under the table."

"You're not coming with me?"

"Someone has to clean the kitchen," I said with a shrug.

He frowned, but I offered him a pair of mitts to hold to carry the pot with, and he went on his way. The patrons would form a line in front of the soup pot, never sniffing with joy the food before them, never smiling as they filled their bellies.

For all their infected sores and brittle bones, they were alive, right? And I—I did my part to provide for them, unseen and unknown. I stayed behind in the kitchen, and to the beat of a distant, archaic eight-track, I straightened up the boxes of seaweed and tofu packets. I ran water—spurting, irregular water—to clean bowls from the morning meal. And if the kitchen looked clean, that was only to the untrained eye. Tiny yellow spots dotted the area around the sink and even past that. I found a few stains on the center island, too, and I kneeled down to wipe them away.

That's why, when the double door opened, I didn't see who came in. I just said, "If you need more bowls, I'll be through with them in a minute."

"Sorry, I'm not hungry."

I shot up. It was a man—a stranger in a dirty green jacket two sizes too small. Despite his haggard appearance, the man's gaze was steady and even.

As steady as the revolver at his side.

"I see," I said. "What do you want? We don't have a lot of money."

The man huffed, shaking his head. "This isn't about money."

"What then?"

At that, the man made no reply, at least not at first. Instead, he wandered the kitchen for a bit. He ran a finger over the countertop, picking up loose droplets of soup. He admired his own reflection in the dangling pots and pans.

"Why here?" he asked at last. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"It, uh…" I backed away from him. He circled the kitchen island, following me, and I backpedaled to match his strides. "It helps people," I said.

"Does it?"

I reached for the edge of the island behind me. "I like to think so."

"It doesn't help me," he said, keeping up with me with long steps.

"It could." I gestured to the doors leading into the cafeteria. "Are you hungry?"

He shook his head. "I don't need help. If you want to help someone, help my wife."

I frowned. I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could speak, the doors to the cafeteria opened. Taniguchi came in with an empty pot.

"I can't believe we got that much out of that one packet," he muttered. "All right, so, I think we might need another—oh."

The stranger hid his hands behind his back, nodding in apology. "Sorry, I was just talking with my friend here," the stranger explained. "We go way back."

Taniguchi frowned. "Is that true?" he asked me.

My eyes flickered to the revolver behind the stranger's back. There were less than two meters between Taniguchi and the stranger—a short enough distance for one man to tackle another in a couple steps, and short enough that a shot from that range would be fatal.

"It is. It's, uh, been a long time, so we're just trying to catch up."

"All right. I'll leave you two alone, okay?"

I nodded. "Great!"

Taniguchi left us, though not without one last look at the stranger. When the door shut, the stranger put the revolver at his side again. He stared at the door with narrowed eyes.

And while he was doing that, I slipped a pot from the rack above me and hid it behind my back.

"Your wife, was it?" I said, breaking the silence.

The stranger's eyes snapped back to me. "Yes," he said. "She's had a hard time finding a job. We both have."

I nodded. "I could help you with that. We know some people, recruiters—"

"No, no." The man shook his head and looked aside. "She's gone now."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"She walked into the ocean and didn't come back."

The stranger pressed the gun to the side of his head.

"And you were right here," he said. "You weren't there for her."

I put out a hand, trying to calm him down. "Hey, wait a minute. I've been trying to help; I—"

"Help? Like this?" He tapped a couple pots with the grip of his revolver and scoffed. "Does this look like helping to you? Look at all this. Look at this mess! We needed you, and you hide here. You don't even show your face! You're not helping anyone!"

"I am!" I said, stomping my foot on the floor.

"You're not." The man put the gun back to his temple. "And you can't help someone like me."

"No, that's not—" I shuddered. "That isn't—that's not fair!"

"Not fair?" The man laughed. "Does something about this seem like it should be fair to you?"

I shuddered again. I ran my fingers through my hair. "You come in here—you tell me I'm not helping people—and you don't give me a chance to make it right?"

The man tilted his head slightly, and the barrel of the gun moved a few millimeters from his skin. "What can you do?" he asked.

I circled back toward the man, approaching him between the island and the oven rack. "I don't know what exactly," I admitted, "but I can try. I can try to find a way to make things better."

"You promise that?" he asked. "You promise to try, no matter how hard it gets?"

"I do, absolutely." I nodded twice, keeping my eyes steady on him.

The man shook his head, breaking into a coy grin. "No, don't mess with me, kid. You're just saying that. You gave up on us a long time ago."

I winced. "That's not it! Honest! I did what I could when there was an opportunity. I haven't been able to do that in a while, but maybe. I didn't want to lead everyone back out here to something hopeless. I didn't want…" I gestured to the cafeteria outside. "I didn't want to lead people to just this. It needs to change; I know that. We need to make things better. I don't know how, but it has to happen."

"Better how?" he yelled.

"I don't know _how_ , but it needs to be good enough that…" I looked aside, fumbling for words. "That people feel they can stay in this world!"

The man raised an eyebrow. "I see. So that's what you think, huh?" He laughed, taking his eyes off me. "I thought so. All you needed was a little push, and you'd show what still mattered to you. Good. I'm glad for that."

"I'm glad too," I said, daring to smile. "So—"

The man raised the gun.

He raised the gun and pointed it at me.

He lined up his eye to the barrel, and he put his finger on the trigger.

I shrank down; I threw the pot from behind my back and crouched!

BA-CLANG!

Metal ripped at my shoulder; I fell back into the row of cabinets behind me. The pot fluttered across the room and clattered on the tile. My arm burned like a lava flow.

"I'm so glad," the man said. "That makes this easier."

"Wha—why?" I cried. "I told you exactly what you wanted to hear!"

But the man was implacable. With narrow, focused eyes, he offered neither answers nor mercy. He towered over me by the kitchen island, and he leveled the revolver on me again. My eyes crossed to see the tip of the barrel, and all else about the scene—the splatter of blood on those stainless cabinets; the gunman's steady, emotionless face—faded from view. There was just the tip of the barrel left in my sight.

And a glow—the glow of a girl who shouldn't be. From the far corner of the kitchen, she watched us, a silent observer of history.

Rei Ayanami watched us—the girl who never should've been, in the green-and-white uniform of a school that no longer existed.

How fitting it was, that the girl who had lived and died for us would reappear as a phantom, a mirage of my pain and suffering, just as I was about to die, too.

And like a good assassin, the gunman didn't make me beg for my life. He aimed for my forehead, and—

BANG!

I shut my eyes, then I thought I shouldn't have time to think about shutting my eyes.

Then I thought I shouldn't have time to think about not having time to think about shutting my eyes, definitely.

So why was I still alive?

The gunman seemed as perplexed as I was. He turned the revolver aside, opened the chamber, and spun it. He snarled, gritting his teeth, and he shot again:

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!

Four ear-splitting shots—they swamped my hearing with a high-pitched hiss. I was half-deafened, but I was still alive.

The gunman snarled. He turned the gun over, holding it by the barrel. He raised the gun overhead and turned grip down to club me into submission.

Thud! There was a _thud_ , but I couldn't find it with the noise in my ears. My eyes darted about the room, and then, I saw it: the double doors to the cafeteria had slammed on their hinges. Taniguchi barged in. He swung the soup pot like a meteor hammer!

The pot struck the gunman's head and rattled in Taniguchi's hand.

"It's all right; we got him! We got him, Ikari!"

My body slid down along the back cabinets. Somewhere, Taniguchi was yelling for police and paramedics. The shooter lay on his side and clutched his head woozily.

Rei Ayanami? No one saw anyone like her.

As for me, I lay there, among the cold metal cabinets and utensils, as my blood seeped away. I'd given my body for the world before. What was a little blood?

Unfortunately, the paramedics arrived shortly and thought I didn't need to give any more. They stuck me with needles to take care of the pain, and they wheeled me past the shooter to an ambulance, but I tugged on one of the medic's sleeves as we went by.

"Sir?" said the medic.

"I'd like to speak to someone," I said.

The police had taken the shooter to the main cafeteria. With a dark blue bruise on his forehead, he sat with his head hanging low and his hands cuffed behind his back.

My throat was dry, but I cleared it and said, "Why did you do this?"

The shooter looked up, through the strands of hair that had fallen around his face, and he spat on the floor.

But in doing so, he exposed some black ink on the side of his neck.

One of the officers pulled down the man's jacket collar, showing the tattoo for all to see: a triangle, upside down, with two sets of eyes in columns running through it—two on the left and three on the right.

The mark of Instrumentality's architects, of Seele.

"Take care, Ikari," he said, grinning. "Our eyes are watching you."

Some things can't be put behind you because you'd rather forget them, you see. You can run away from them and put those memories in the past, but if you're not careful, those things you flee from will grow and grow in the dark, into a cancer that reaches out from where you cannot see.

#

It amazes me still—how quickly most people put themselves back together, how quickly they got back to their lives.

After all, how many people did it take to crew an ambulance? To drive it? To maintain it when it leaked oil or needed new tires? To tell the driver where to go? To give it a place to stay when it wasn't needed?

That's a lot of people, and they all came out to see me. The doctors bowed before me, promising a full recovery within a week—not a difficult promise, considering I'd only been grazed. The nurses asked if I had any special requests for food or entertainment. Even the cleaning staff took care to wipe down my suite's washroom by hand. They all asked questions when they thought there was a free minute: "What have you been doing since we got back? I never see you on the news." "Did you get together with the redhead?" Stuff like that.

I thought they were just paying me too much attention, but it was more than that. When I took a look around the hospital, just to stretch my legs, I passed rows of empty beds and vacant suites. On my floor, the only other soul was a young girl with a broken leg.

The hospital had been built for a different time. Like I said, it amazes me how many people put themselves back together and got back to their lives, for I know how many people _didn't_ come back, and it would've been far easier for most of us to have stayed behind.

After that walk, I made it known I'd be checking out as soon as I was healthy enough to do so.

"But Ikari," said the doctor, "someone just tried to kill you. Don't you think it'd be wise to wait a while? Or to ask for some protection?"

"I'm a private citizen. I work for no one, and the police have better things to do."

The doctor gawked at me, but he wrote down some notes on his pad, shook his head, and went on his way. And for a while, I was naive enough to think it was that easy.

By early evening, I walked out of the hospital with a sling around my arm. I shaded my eyes from the sun and crossed a large parking lot—one large enough for a hundred cars, yet there were less than twenty taking up space there.

And as I came upon the sidewalk and the nearest street, a white car rolled up. The window started to roll down. There was a glint of light, a reflection from inside.

My heart turned cold. I raised my good arm over my face—like that would stop a bullet!—and the driver of the car said,

"What the hell? I actually went to the trouble to look pretty for you today."

Misato Katsuragi peered over her sunglasses at me, and she leaned across the width of the car to open the passenger-side door, grinning like an imp.

"Or did you think I was here to kill you?"

I shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time in the last day or two." I glanced back at the brown hospital building. "Did my doctor call you?"

"Yeah, you know, I should be irritated about that. I was told working at this level would keep random people from calling me up at any time of the day or night. I think someone overstated the benefits of this job."

I laughed a bit and climbed inside. Misato pointed out the seat belt—which she was definitely not wearing, but she drummed her fingers on the gear shifter until I was buckled in—and she said,

"Sorry I'm late."

"Late? I wasn't waiting."

"I know." She smiled to herself. "Just seems appropriate, somehow."

That was the nice thing about Misato: some people didn't come back from the sea quite the same, but Misato hadn't changed. Her idea of "looking pretty" was a tiny touch of lipstick and tangled hair; she drove faster than was sane.

And, of course, she would drive an old friend of hers home from the hospital to protect him from an assassin. These were all aspects of her personality, none of them any more (or any less) real than the others. They were all parts of her.

And I was glad that something somewhere saw fit to bring her back from the dead for us.

"I didn't die!" she said once. "I was just momentarily less than alive!"

That was her usual protest if the topic came up, anyway, and looking at her then, you'd have never known she'd died in the first place. Despite her knotted hair, she looked quite at home in her uniform—the green officer's dress of the Ground Self-Defense Force, even if she wasn't entirely happy with her job.

"It's a little dull," she bemoaned, and she took her displeasure out on a traffic cone, squibbing it behind us. "Believe me, the PM isn't interested in hearing advice from an upstart like me. He'd make me General of the Arctic if it would put me in charge of absolutely nothing."

"You like to stay busy."

"Damn right I do. Work hard, sleep hard, drink hard, bang hard. You've got to go at life full-tilt, or life will tilt you instead."

I made a face. "Is that so?"

She shrugged, but she did let off the gas a little. "Okay, maybe there's room for a little moderation now and then. I came back with a new liver; I'm trying to live with it for at least the next ten years. That's a goal, right?"

"You need to take care of yourself, Misato."

"Same for you, I should think." She slammed on the brakes at a stoplight, and when I was done getting the seatbelt out of my chest, Misato said, "So, what happened?"

I turned aside, facing the window. "You already know, don't you?"

"I know what I've read and what I've heard. I'm asking you."

"The man had a Seele tattoo."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know." She took out her frustrations on the accelerator. "I wasn't looking forward to hearing from those guys again, but it was just a matter of time!" She turned a curve at 1.5 _g_ just for the hell of it. Thank goodness my left arm still worked, or I would've been pinned against the window. "Men like them prey on the downtrodden and hopeless. That's why we have to fight them by rebuilding this world, one day at a time."

We hit straight, level road, and I relaxed.

That word Misato used— _rebuilding_ —I'm not sure it was the right one. We came back to the real world with the world already built up. Beyond the Crater, most cities were still standing. Nature had hardly encroached upon them, despite the time that had passed while we dreamed. Truly, there wasn't much we needed to build. How could there be? Just on that drive, Misato and I passed a boarded-up grocery store, with broken windows and graffiti sprayed over the walls. Nature and time hadn't caused that damage. That was humanity.

"So, we'll put something together to go punch those guys in the face. They're the last thing we need to deal with now."

"Is that really SDF's job?"

"I mean the government. I'm part of the government now—as useless as my so-called job might be."

"You might need to find another job, if you're so bored right now."

Misato smiled, and she shifted into a higher gear. The car accelerated, and I sank a little deeper into my seat.

"You might say I have some prospects," she said.

"That's good."

"It is. And what about you?"

"Me?"

"Are you intent on working in soup kitchens and charity shops for the rest of your life?"

I drummed my fingers on the armrest, looking away. "Until I can go around without being recognized anymore."

"That right? Well, maybe that's for the best. You've done more than anyone could've expected of you. It's not unreasonable to rest on your laurels. It's our turn now."

Misato's grip on the steering wheel was firm and steady, and she navigated the next curve gently. She turned just enough to guide us through the ninety-degree bend, and she let the wheel slip through her fingers until it was straight and level again. All throughout, her expression was focused and serious. She watched the road with unwavering eyes. She never even glanced at me.

"Right?" she said.

"Mm," was all I could say.

Misato dropped me off at my building in the New City. I invited her over for dinner, but she wouldn't stay. Always some other meaningless task for the PM—that's what she said. As much as she complained, Misato zipped off in that horrifically expensive sportscar. Or at least, it would've been expensive before. Maybe, after Third Impact, it didn't have an owner anymore.

#

Apartments in the New City were mostly high rise buildings. They stuck out on the Tokyo-2 skyline like needles from a pin cushion. Old Matsumoto had been a rather small city (or perhaps, a large town), with few buildings tall enough to block a view of the mountains in the distance. But from the top of my building, you could be forgiven for thinking you were taller than the mountains. My penthouse there was my perch, my eye on the world beneath me. The world below was a jungle, and I was a monkey clinging to the highest branch I could.

In front of my door was a red sack of mail. The sack was property of Japan Post, and we had to leave it out each morning for the mailman to pick up. Our mail demanded thorough and intense screening for hazardous substances. Anthrax, ricin—you name it, they scanned for it, or purged it with radiation, or something. I never really knew the details there. The government said the mail was safe, and we hand-picked the postman who would deliver the mail for us each day. That way, we could tell ourselves it was all safe.

I still wonder, though: how fortunate were we, that someone came back from the LCL sea and wanted to be a mailman? Or he felt willing enough to do it? Willing to deliver threats like they were nothing? Dangerous packages and contaminated letters like they were no big deal?

People should be more appreciative of their mailmen, I think. There are so many tough, unglamorous jobs like that, jobs that simply need to be done. The world wouldn't go forward without people to deliver mail and packages. It wouldn't go forward without someone like me to cook food now and again, as I did that evening, despite the sling on my arm. It's a challenge to get water boiling, to boil noodles, or to cut mushrooms with just one good hand, but I did what I could. Because people carry mail or cook food for others, it frees everyone else to fight wars, make art and music, or do science.

Asuka was a great example of that.

She came home around eight that night. She kicked off her shoes and thrust her hands into the pockets of her labcoat. She took one look at me, and she said,

"What the hell? That's just a graze?"

I pulled on my sling. "It's _basically_ a graze, yeah."

"Says you! Get away from that counter. I'm taking care of this."

"So, you want to take care of me? Or do you want to enjoy your dinner?"

She folded her arms and glared, but she relented. "Fine. But if there's anything that takes two hands, I'm helping."

With Asuka's help carrying the soup pot and chopping mushrooms, making dinner went a lot faster, and once Asuka was over the shock of my injury, she settled down enough to tell me about her day.

"Oh, it was awful. Damn undergrad contaminated a trial, so we had to do everything over. I would've been home an hour ago if not for that. Guy's gotta get his head on straight. His own dad died from heart failure; you'd think that'd give a guy motivation!"

At that time, Asuka worked on growing synthetic organs and limbs from an LCL base. As the stuff of primordial life itself, the LCL in the ocean could be harvested and "coerced" into shapes and forms people needed. Apparently this coercion took some combination of electric shocks and threaded scaffolds to make the organs take shape, or something. I was never real clear on the details, but it was impressive work—work people needed to see done.

"Don't be too hard on him," I told her. "People make mistakes sometimes."

Asuka put her soup spoon down and dabbed at her lip. "Mistakes are costly. Some people go off by themselves all alone, even when they get a kilo of hate mail every day. That could've been a very costly mistake." Her eyes snapped up to mine, and she said, "You need to get some protection. Or stay home."

"Protection would draw attention. And I won't stay home and do nothing."

"You don't get to have it both ways. If you do something that matters, people are going to notice you."

"Not if they don't know I'm there."

Asuka made a face at that, like I'd just started speaking Arabic, but her cell phone rang, interrupting us. She grumbled to herself in German and answered.

"Yeah? What? No, we tried the concentration at 0.35 for this batch. What? Okay, let me look."

Phone pressed between her shoulder and ear, Asuka climbed up from the dinner table and trotted into the bedroom. She came back with a laptop under her arm and set it up on a spare cushion.

"Hm, we could increase the thread density and worry about how to remove them later? No, let me pull those up. That was maybe three months ago? I don't remember what we saw then, but I should have it written down here somewhere…."

That conversation went on for over half an hour. Asuka worked on her soup now and then, but she she still had about a third of her bowl left when I washed my bowl out. I left her at the dinner table as she chatted with her colleague over charts and graphs. The work of advancing science doesn't rest when you get home to eat, you see.

Like Asuka, I tried to stay busy, too. I retired to the study and opened the red sack of mail. I had a special set of stationery for responding to these letters, though it wasn't very fancy: just my name in the letterhead, really. The first few letters weren't anything unusual: "My husband had been depressed lately. Do you think Lilith has forsaken us? Why does she let us endure all this suffering, after she promised us salvation here?" Stuff like that.

I'd never been a student of religious theory, and I didn't remember Ayanami promising us anything like _salvation_ in this world, but letters like that weren't so bad. I could say, "We only thought it would be better in this world, to talk to people and meet them, even if they might hurt us, too." That any of us came back at all—that was a decision made by people, and people can be wrong, after all. That doesn't mean the decision was made in bad faith.

That was one of the easier ones. Letters like, "You were wrong, Ikari! You were naive and ignorant! Why would you lead people back into a world of starvation, disease, and death? A world where people can't even find relief on a beach without smelling of blood? What were you thinking?"

I put that letter aside, on a stack of a dozen others, and went on as best I could. Yes, it's hard to deal with letters like that, but at least they're individual people giving their honest thoughts. I couldn't say that about a lot of other people: the vultures who constantly rang our phone off the hook, for instance.

That's not to say the calls didn't bother Asuka and me; we'd put in a switch to disable the ringer if we needed to, and we had a caller ID system installed, too. Right then, all incoming calls to the apartment just lit up a red light on the phone base, and the incoming call number showed in black against a lit background.

And when one of _those_ numbers called, I let the red light blink away until it fizzled out. What happened to us wasn't any of their business. No, what happened to _me_ wasn't any of their business. Asuka was a scientist. She worked for the greater good of humanity. Me? I was a private citizen, nothing more. Unless one of them wanted to talk to me about security near soup kitchens, what happened to me shouldn't have mattered to anyone.

I went back to my letters:

"Ikari, you may not remember, but this isn't the first time I've written to you. I enjoyed your letter from before, but it amazes me that I heard from you at all. What's happened to you? What have you been doing? Everyone says you're a shut-in now, and I don't understand why you'd do that. You helped show everyone we'd lose something if we stayed in the sea. Aren't you losing something by staying isolated in that tower of yours?"

I mean, on the face of it, it wasn't true. I still saw people from time to time. I saw Asuka almost every day. I worked in the soup kitchen and had good relations with the other staff there. I knew over a dozen of the kitchen's patrons by sight. I'd heard about where they lived, their past histories, and their future dreams. I met people. I was meeting people. And I had never objected to meeting people—not most people, anyway.

It was the people who'd call my home phone at all hours of the day or night, who'd flash the red light there even when it was dark—all because we couldn't stand to leave the ringer on and hear them wailing at us—those were the people I'd shut out of my life, and there were a lot of them.

But when I put that letter aside, I put my pen down and slid my stationery away, too. The red light on the phone base blinked incessantly, and I snatched up the handset to snuff it out.

"Yes, who is it?" I snapped.

"Hm?" said the man on the other end. "Oh, wow, uh, good evening. Is this Ikari?"

"Speaking."

"Ah, yes, this is Itsuki Miyamoto from—"

I glanced at the number on the caller ID. "From Yomiuri News."

"Yes, yes. I, uh, I wasn't expecting to reach you…."

"What do you want?"

"Well, as you can imagine, there's wild speculation and rumor surrounding the attempt on your life."

"And?"

"…ah, well, I would go over the details of the attack with you? The police report is rather sparse."

"A man entered the kitchen with a revolver. He tried to shoot me, but he only shot once before the gun misfired. That's all."

"That's all? Really? What about the lack of bullets? What about the five-eyed tattoo on the man's neck?"

A chill ran down my spine, and I brought the handset closer to my mouth.

"What do you know about that?" I said.

"It's from the new Seele, Ikari. Haven't you heard what they're up to?"

I balled my hand into a fist. "What those people choose to do with their lives is no concern of mine."

"Until they shoot at you. That makes them a threat, doesn't it?"

I drummed my fingers on the handset. "I don't have anything else to say. Leave us alone. Goodbye."

"Wait, WAIT! Just one more thing, and that's all. Please understand; my boss would have my ass if I didn't get at least one more thing out of you. One question, and that's it. I promise."

I straightened out the last letter on my desk. "One question."

"You've got dozens of people—not just in my paper but in every newspaper in the country—hanging on your every word. You could use that to speak out against militaristic buildup, or to push for better social services for the poor and hungry. You could condemn Seele publicly, but you do nothing. So, I must ask you: why do you stay silent?"

I hissed, forcing air through my clenched teeth. "I never asked anyone to follow me," I said curtly. "I made a decision for myself. Don't look to me for answers; I don't have any, so just leave me alone, all right?"

"Maybe you're right about that, but right or wrong, Ikari, people aren't going to leave you alone just because you ask them nicely."

No, people were too stubborn, too insistent for that. And for that matter, they wouldn't refrain from shooting you just because you told them what you thought they wanted to hear.

"Hello?" said the reporter. "Are you still there?"

I jerked in my seat. "Um, yes, I'm still here."

"Okay. Well, thank you for your time."

"No, wait."

"What?" A pause. "What is it?"

"I might have more to say to you," I said, glancing at the unlit red light on the phone base, "if you can give me some information in return."

"I'm listening."

"What do you know about Seele these days?"

"That depends, Ikari. Are you telling me it _was_ a tattoo of a triangle and eyes on the shooter's neck?"

I smiled to myself, and for the first time that whole conversation, I sat back in my chair.

#

You see, people did more than just get back to their lives after Instrumentality. They moved forward. They dedicated themselves to building the future they wanted to see, however beautiful or horrific it was.

Seele was like that. For the next week or so, I let the hate mail pile up on my desk as I looked into Seele. They were organized, I found, and very good at propaganda. They had their own website dedicated to putting out their twisted views. "Mankind will destroy itself without Instrumentality!" That's what they said, in blinking red text that scrolled across the page. As secretive as they were, I guess they didn't believe in subtlety.

They wanted to get their message across to the world, too. They recorded a broadcast each week to their followers, in English, German, Japanese, and French. "Fear not, brothers and sisters, for though Adam and Lilith have failed us, there is still salvation to be found, and it is coming—soon."

The promise of that "salvation" inspired Seele to go to war—and they interpreted the actions of legitimate governments as preparations for that coming battle, too. Now, you should be skeptical of evidence that comes from terrorists. Photos of armies on exercises, or warplanes being built, don't really tell you anything. Countries do that all the time anyway, and they would do it just to protect themselves from each other than to defend against some Fourth Impact Revolution.

Still, I asked some people I knew to check the evidence and look on their own for information, which turned up a few leads. For instance, the Defense Agency had requested significant sums of money for various projects—mostly in the name of "emergency preparedness." I thought that was vague enough to investigate, though I hadn't thought much would come of it.

Until I got a phone call from an old friend.

"Hey, Shinji, did you ask Kensuke to do some snoopin' about some SDF money?"

Toji Suzuhara, an old friend and fellow Eva pilot, called me up on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, as I'd been listening to another Seele broadcast. I put my headphones aside and pressed the phone handset closer to my ear. I lowered my voice and said, "Yes, why?"

"I just got a call from his dad a little while ago; PSB just barged in and snatched him up! With no warning! What the hell did you get him involved in?"

That's what I wanted to know!

I made a few calls and found out that my friend and contact—Kensuke Aida—had been taken to Metro Police headquarters in National Square for questioning. I showed up there and spoke with some of the officers in charge, trying to get Kensuke off the hook, but the officer in charge was adamant:

"Look, Ikari, you really shouldn't say anything more to me," said the inspector. "Your friend is in possession of classified material. The PSB's duty to investigate this is paramount. I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do here."

"Not even for me?"

In came Misato, who gave the inspector a polite bow while I stared dumbstruck.

"I'm sorry, General," said the inspector, "but if you think SDF can intrude on a police matter, you're quite mistaken."

"Haven't you heard?" said Misato, showing him an award-winning smile. "SDF is an extension of the police. You and I are the same."

The inspector chuckled politely. "I doubt that."

"Oh? Well, maybe this will change your mind." Misato handed over an envelope. The inspector furrowed his brow as he pored over each line in the memo.

"You can't be serious!" he said. "You can't do this!"

"I think you'll find that letter has the PM's signature on it, yes? That means I can do anything. If it said I could put you and your officers on vacation, I could do it. If it said I could turn the fountain outside into a swimming pool, I could do it. If it said I could requisition some pizza and beer for staff productivity, I could damn well do it." Misato snapped her fingers and frowned. "Damn. Why didn't I ask him for that?"

The inspector balled up the letter and hurled it into a trashcan, shaking his head. He conferred with one of his officers, and Kensuke was shown the way out from an interrogation room.

"Hey! About time you showed up! I thought they were gonna waterboard me!"

He pulled on his collar, adjusting his plaid red tie. One of the officers handed Kensuke's black blazer back to him, and Kensuke carried it over his shoulder as he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"Don't be silly," said Misato. "We have much more effective methods than that."

Kensuke paled, laughing stiffly. "Uh…huh?"

"Don't do it again, and don't look into these matters any further, Aida." Misato winked. "That's an order, okay?"

Kensuke stiffened, standing straight and tall. "Yes, ma'am!"

"Good! Now, do you need a ride home?"

"Ah, no, I'll catch the train. It's not a big deal." Kensuke turned to me. "Shinji—first time I've seen you in months, and you get me involved in some military conspiracy! What gives?"

I bowed in apology. "Sorry. I shouldn't have gotten you wrapped up in this."

"You kidding? Military Club's gonna go wild over this!"

Misato cleared her throat and raised both eyebrows.

"Or they _would_ go wild over this," said Kensuke, slapping his forehead with a sigh. "Ah well. Thanks for calling in the cavalry to spring me."

I glanced at Misato, and she put on the smile of an innocent schoolgirl. Kensuke didn't notice, continuing on:

"Stay in touch a little more, okay? Toji and I are doing a weekly tournament at the arcade. You should drop by."

"I'll try to pop in," I said.

"Don't just promise; be there, yeah?"

Misato cleared her throat again. "Aida, maybe you want to get home before you worry your father?"

"Ah!" Kensuke checked his watch. "You're right. Thanks again!"

With that, he ran off, leaving Misato and me alone. We followed Kensuke outside, into the open air. It was only as we cleared the lobby doors and entered the sunlight that I spoke to Misato.

"How did you know?"

"I'm nothing if not well-connected. Working for the PM does that, after all."

"I'd understand that if you pulled it off after the fact, but I hadn't told anyone Kensuke was arrested. How did you find out so fast?"

"Why is it you're looking into SDF troop movements and Seele activities?"

I looked out, over the square in front of us. It was a large greenspace with criss-crossing sidewalks and a central fountain. The surrounding buildings had all the features of regal governance: metal domes, classical pillars, tall and narrow windows, and the like. This was National Square, the heart of the Japanese government. SDF officers milled about in uniform. Lawyers and politicians crossed the grounds in their suits, all working toward the efficient operation of the country.

It's easy to be cynical about politicians and the like, but I'd learned over the previous two years that most politicians believe in what they're doing. They have conviction that they need to win and gain power to steer the nation toward safety and prosperity. People like them don't like to sit idly by.

And neither did Misato.

"You don't just work for the PM, do you?" I asked.

Misato shook her head.

"Are we safe?" I went on. "Are we safe from them?"

"I'm working to make us all safe."

I stepped in front of her, trying to catch her eye. "What can you do? If an assassin corners you in a kitchen, what can you do? If a suicide bomber takes out a ship, what can you do?"

Misato folded her arms. "Seele's just a group of people. I'm not worried about what people do. We can handle them."

"So there's nothing to worry about? No cause for concern?"

"I didn't exactly say that." She smiled bitterly, and she touched my shoulder—the shoulder of mine that supported my sling. "Sorry. That's all I can tell you, right now."

" 'Sorry'?" I jolted away from her. I pulled on the strap of the sling and let go. It snapped back against my body. "Look at this: this is what they did to me, and all you can say is _sorry_? Come on. Tell me: why are they making a move now?"

"Why do you ask?"

I shuddered, gawking at her. Misato's stare pierced me like a blast of x-rays.

"Do I need to say it again?" she said. "Why do you want to know?"

"Be—because I deserve to know!" I sputtered.

"And if you'd regret finding out? What then?"

"I should be the one to decide that."

We stared at each other for a time, and Misato was first to break: she sighed, shaking her head, and headed down the steps into the square.

"Come on, then," she said.

Misato led me across the square, into a building I wasn't familiar with. SDF guards manned the lobby, but Misato flashed them an ID card and nodded at me, and the guards stood down. One of them even said,

"Nice to see you here, sir."

I gave a polite smile in return, and that was all.

We took an elevator down several floors to an underground train station. I call it a _station_ , but it was much smaller than any public train or subway station, with only a handful of guards on duty and no passengers in sight. The traincar itself was a curved, glossy white vehicle, like something out of the future—too pristine and neat to be part of the real world.

"Are you coming?" Misato stood between the sliding doors, holding them open.

My mouth hung open. I glanced down both ends of the tunnel, but the lights beyond were dim and unhelpful.

I tugged at the sling on my shoulder. I swallowed, and I said,

"Yeah."

Misato stood aside and waved me inside, and I sat down with her. The train doors closed, and we sped down a tunnel of gray rock and fluorescent lights to parts unknown.

#

The train arrived at another platform, identical to the first. The guards saluted when Misato walked out, and their eyes followed me as we entered the rest of the facility. Misato explained it used to be a bunker for the government. "Politicians spare no expense to make sure they'll survive," she quipped. But since learning of Seele's "salvation," SDF had converted the bunker into a base of operations.

We headed down a rocky tunnel, which let to buildings, of all things. They sat on springs, but they were buildings nonetheless: underground buildings, complete with fluorescent lighting, speckled ceiling tiles, and fake wood trim. If not for the occasional window that showed the rock tunnel, we could've been above ground for all I'd have known.

Misato led me to one of those false mahogany doors in particular. She took her ID in hand, but her hand hovered over the card reader.

"You know," she said, not facing me, "you can go back at any time."

"I know," I said.

Misato nodded, and she swiped her card in the reader. The lock clicked open, and Misato pushed the door inward, revealing…

An array of cubicles?

Misato went inside, and I scampered in as the door closed automatically behind me. I stared, open-mouthed, as I took in the sight around me: SDF officers manned the workstations, looking entirely too mundane as they chatted on headsets and moved windows around on their dual-monitor setups.

More exotic were the three large screens at the front of the room. They were lit by projectors in the back. The left screen had a map of the world with three stars on it: one in Germany, one in America, and one in Japan. The middle screen had some image I couldn't quite make out—a round object with a series of rings around it. The edges were irregular and pixellated, however.

Finally, the rightmost screen showed a graph of some kind: distance to earth in light-minutes versus time. The distance of _what_ wasn't made clear.

"Well, it's about time!"

I jerked in surprise. A man in thick, black-rimmed glasses approached us with a clipboard—he was the former Lieutenant Hyuga with Nerv, and since then, it seemed he'd switched to GSDF, too.

"Nice to see you again, Shinji," he said, offering a hand. "We'll be glad to have any help you can give us."

I shook his hand weakly, laughing to myself. Misato caught Hyuga's gaze and shook her head.

"Sorry, I guess I misunderstood," said Hyuga, wincing. "General—should I give you these some other time?"

"No, that's all right. I'd like to review everything as soon as I'm done giving the grand tour. Anything I should know about in particular?"

The two of them went over some information I didn't completely understand—at least, not at the time. There were new measurements from the National Observatory that Hyuga wanted to go over. Some object they'd been monitoring was only two hundred light-minutes away. Misato and Hyuga discussed the issue while studying a graph on one of the projector screens. The curve on that graph had been steeper at one point. It was leveling off, but it still made an inexorable mark toward zero.

While they were talking, I looked more closely over the room. There was something primitive and minimalistic about it The sloped ceiling gave it a claustrophobic feel, and the grid of cubicles—each with a nameplate reading _Telemetry_ or _Liaison_ —seemed remarkably low-tech compared to what I was used to.

Misato must've caught me looking around, for she leaned over my shoulder, saying, "Not really that much to see, is there? Well, let's get to something exciting, hm?" She nodded to Hyuga. "We're going downstairs."

Misato led me from the control room out another door. We went down a few hallways to an open elevator—one with an empty, honeycomb wire lattice for walls. Beyond those walls lay a large chamber. An unusual warmth and humidity emanated from that chamber. It felt like standing a few meters from an open sauna door, or from a hot spring. That heat and humidity pushed against me like a surging tide—a tide with the smell of iron.

"What is it? Don't you want to see?" Misato flipped a switch on the elevator, holding the doors open.

"No, I—I don't need to see that."

"No? All right. Is there anything else you want to see, then?"

I shook my head.

"So, what do you plan to do now?" Misato folded her arms, and she leaned back against the metal railing that reinforced the elevator. "Do you regret knowing what you know now?"

I stared at the floor. "So what if I do? There's nothing I can do about it."

"That's not true. You could work here."

My head snapped up, and my hand clenched into a fist. "No! I won't! Not again!"

"That's fine. We don't need you to do that."

A small sound came out of my mouth, but it was nothing sensible. I stared at her, at a loss.

"We have candidates already," she explained. "They would benefit from your experience, your wisdom, your strength—if you're willing to offer it. You don't need to _do_ anything now. You just need to show them who you are—or who you were."

"And who is that?"

"A hero, right?"

I shook my head. "That would be a lie. I'm not that. I was never that."

Misato raised an eyebrow at me, but she said nothing. She pushed off the railing of the elevator, flipped the switch on the controls, and stepped out, letting the elevator doors close. She took a heavy breath, watching me with steady eyes, and said,

"If you say so."

And with that, the tour was over. Misato took me back to the train, and we parted ways on the other side, back in town. Though I set foot on the platform, she stayed aboard the train, leaving me with these words:

"Seele's wrong about a lot of things. They're wrong about the way the world should be, or what humanity should do from here on. But they're not wrong about one thing."

"What's that?" I asked her.

"Something _is_ coming. It's out there, and it's not going to turn around and go back the way it came. You can either do something about that or do your best to stay out of the way."

And with that, she left me. Misato had to make the future she wanted to see become reality, and if she didn't work for it, that reality would crumble around us soon.

Misato and Seele both set goals for themselves—goals meant to change the world.

And I?

The best goal I had was to get dinner started before Asuka came home.

#

I'm not sure if there's a place in the world for people like me—or like how I was, at that time. Either you help turn the present into the future, or you get left behind as you try to take refuge in the past. Looking at it that way, I guess there's always a place for people in some world—just not the world of what's yet to come.

Asuka wasn't like that. As soon as I told her what Misato was doing, she got on the phone with the general, looking for a job. "I have experience with this, Misato! Not just experience, but the technical expertise to be useful. Now, tell me: how did you guys manage to build another one, let alone three?"

Misato was vague on details—especially over the phone—but she invited Asuka for a meeting, and things moved along there quite quickly. I didn't pay attention to the exact details there. They'd get it all figured out on their own, and I had letters to respond to.

It turned out I had more time to respond to letters than I'd realized, too. A couple days later, I went back to the soup kitchen—the abandoned school—to work my usual shifts again. I went to change my shoes at the shoe lockers, but I found a note in mine:

 _Ikari, we've always valued your contribution to our cause here, but the staff are concerned that your presence constitutes a safety risk that we—_

I balled up the note and chucked it aside. Sighing, I leaned back against the lockers, closed my eyes, and shut it all away.

I wandered the area around the school for a time. It was a hot and uncomfortable walk, as I wore a green, hooded sweatshirt to help hide my face. Sunglasses protected my eyes, and they gave the world around me an unrealistically vibrant hue. I hate that about sunglasses. Everything looks more real, more full of life, through those lenses. And then you take them off, and the real world is pale and withering in the sun. Grass that looked a healthy green is actually dying and losing color. Stuff like that. Sunglasses make the world look better than it really is.

I ripped those sunglasses off my face and forced that withered world into my eyes. I stomped my foot on the sidewalk, and it cracked just a little. The world was broken. Its people were broken. Their lives and their homes were full of ghosts.

And one of those ghosts—one of those faults or defects—stared back at me.

It took the form of a person. It stood at the end of the middle school access road, and it watched me. It dressed in all white; its robes shined with the gloss of satin. The _thing_ stared at me without eyes, for its hood covered its face—all the way to its nose.

I did a double-take when I ran into that thing. I glanced back down the other end of the road, but no one else was around.

And when I looked back at it, the hooded stranger was gone.

#

I stayed home for the rest of the week. I still had a backlog of letters to respond to, and it was a rule of mine that no letter should take more than a week to deal with—either to respond to, or to put aside.

 _Aren't you losing something by staying isolated in that tower of yours?_

I twirled a pen in my hand as I stared over that letter, but after a few minutes to think on it, I stood at my desk, twisted a bit funny to line up my sling over the paper, and wrote,

"No, I like being up here. I like seeing all the lights in the city as they come on at night. I like knowing that people are recovering, a little bit at a time. People are doing just fine now, but don't worry. If the time comes that I need to be there, that I need to say something, I'll be there. That's a promise."

I stared at that for a moment before crumpling up the stationery and pulling out a new sheet.

But just as I put pen to paper, a voice called to me from the main room.

"Hey! Do you see what's going on outside?"

I trotted from the bedroom to meet Asuka. She stood at the sliding glass door that opened to our balcony. It was nighttime, and there was a steady, rhythmic clatter on the balcony.

"It's raining," I said.

"Is it?"

I stepped out on the balcony. It _was_ raining. There was no question of that.

It was raining red splotches of viscous goo.

#

You know, I lied before when I said there's not much I regret. I regret a lot.

I regret being the boy who drifted aimlessly for two years.

I regret stuffing myself in that penthouse to look down on the world, as though I weren't a part of it. There's no place in the world for people who act like that yet expect the world to not pass them by. Those who try to make their own futures won't always succeed, but they have more control than someone like me, than anyone like who I was at that time.

I won't say I was ready to start swimming against that inexorable current of the future others make.

But, as the bloody rain came down on Tokyo-2, I put on my green hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. I packed a backpack with crackers and bottles of water.

And I took with me a sheathed kitchen knife, to help steer the current in my favor.


	2. Blood Rain

**Blood Rain  
** _Chapter Two_

Looking back, I realize now that Second and Third Impact left a great scar on us—on Japan, and on humanity as a whole. I don't mean just the people who died and left us—though that affected us, too. I mean how prepared we were for disasters, how we'd come to expect them to happen—maybe not in our minds, but in our hearts.

I saw it that night, as the bloody rain fell outside. Asuka and I headed down to the basement utility plant, and there, we found our neighbors taking refuge. Residents camped out under pipes or near water boilers. They filled every nook and cranny, sitting with backpacks or luggage full of the essentials—crackers, water bottles, and the like. A network of lanterns lit the maze-like room, casting the whole floor in an artificial white glow. One of the residents had set up a radio for updates and news, not that it was very helpful:

"Take shelter away from windows or exterior walls. Do not go outside until the all-clear notice is given. Updates to this notice will be issued every quarter-hour. Repeat: this is a precautionary safety notice. Do not be alarmed; this is only a precaution. Take shelter away from windows or exterior walls. Do not go outside until the all-clear notice is given. Updates will be issued every quarter-hour—"

You get the idea. The reactions to this message were about as you'd expect, too:

"Precautionary for what?" said a teenaged boy by the radio. "What's so dangerous that they can't even tell us what's happening?"

"I'm sure the government would tell us what's going on if it made sense to do so," said the boy's mother.

"The same government that lied to us about the Angel attacks?"

"No, no, it's a different government now."

We were prepared for disasters, but that didn't mean we accepted them. There's an undeniable weight to it, the resignation that your fate is out of your control and that the best you can do is cope. Some of the residents set up games to pass the time—I spotted a group of four at mahjong and another pair halfway through a game of go. Others read books or comics by the poor light of flashlights or lanterns. What else could we do?

Asuka and I settled into a damp spot under some leaking pipes—I'm sure that had nothing to do with why that spot was open—and sat down with the rest of our neighbors to watch, listen, and wait.

Or at least, that's what I did. Asuka had other ideas. She propped up a writing pad on her knees and wedged a flashlight between some pipes to keep light on the pad as she wrote. I peered over to look at one point, but all I could make out was a mix of German and mathematics—an incomprehensible combination if I'd ever seen one.

"It's simple," said Asuka. "If it rains about one centimeter of LCL in total, as measured by a rain gauge, then all you need to know is the total area being rained on to estimate the volume of the Angel, give or take an order of magnitude."

"And how big is that?" I asked.

"What?"

"How big is the Angel, then?"

Asuka frowned, and she twirled a pencil between her fingers. "Well, if you say Japan is 3000 kilometers by 1500 kilometers, we're talking about something maybe 5 kilometers in diameter?" Asuka pursed her lips, and she put an eraser to the piece of paper. "No, that can't be. Must be off by an order of magnitude somewhere…"

But at least she tried. Even in captivity like this, Asuka was trying to figure out something about our situation. The most I could do was watch and listen. I watched her jot down estimates of rain gauges and city areas. I listened to our neighbors talk about petty, meaningless things—like who had died recently in a daytime drama, or which of their neighbors set off the smoke alarm that week.

"It was the Tendo family for sure." One of the residents near us talked with her family in a low voice. "No sense of urgency with them. Have you seen seen them down here yet?"

Asuka took notice of that. She put her pencil down and got up, approaching the other family. Honestly, that was so impolite of her, and she was always like that. Maybe that's what people do in Germany, or in the West, but if you do stuff like that here, people are going to be annoyed with you.

Then again, Asuka was never one to care much about that. If there was something she wanted to know, she'd ask about it, and she did there. She went up to the other family next to us and said,

"Someone you know hasn't come down yet?"

Our neighbors took one look at her and exchanged a few glances. Even in the dim light, Asuka's bright red hair was hard to miss. Still, the mother said, "I'm sure they're on their way down soon. I'm sorry if we were too loud."

Asuka shrugged. "You weren't, really. What was the name? Tendo? And what room are they in?"

The mother stiffened.

"I'm not asking your names or anything."

The mother and her children exchanged some glances, and at last, she said, "They're in 446."

"Great, thanks!" Asuka tucked her notepad under her arm and set off with a flashlight.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Looking for some people named _Tendo_. It sounds like they might not have taken the air raid siren seriously. Maybe because they don't really know what it's about, you know?"

"But, but, what am I supposed to do?"

"You could stay here, if you want? Would be easier that way. Watch our stuff, yeah?"

I frowned at that, and I handed Asuka's knapsack over to her as I put on my own backpack. Asuka smiled slyly as she slung the knapsack onto her back.

"You know, I like it when you get surly like this."

"I'll be more than surly if the Angel attacks while we're walking around, or if some pipes or ductwork fall on top of us in the chaos."

"Come on; the odds of that have to be a hundred million to one."

"Give or take an order of magnitude?"

"Shut up," she said with a dour expression, but at the same time, she pulled me by the shoulder, helping me squeeze through a narrow part channel between some pipes. "You know," she muttered, "I'm just going to ask some questions. If people knew what was coming, they wouldn't wait to get down here, right?"

I nodded.

"Are you okay with that?"

I scratched the back of my head and sighed. "With the sirens going off like that, who would stay in their own apartment right now anyway? Why do we have to be the ones to take care of this?"

"That's not an answer."

"I know."

Asuka rubbed my back, and she pulled on the hood of my sweatshirt. "Put this up," she said, "and put on your sunglasses. Nobody has to know. I'll do all the talking."

I nodded, and I hid behind a veil of green fabric and dark lenses, looking upon the dim world through a filter that was all the dimmer.

True to her word, Asuka did all the talking. She made a round through the whole utility plant, asking about the Tendo family. Did people know them? Did they know what they looked like? All that sort of thing.

Of course, the residents knew Asuka. The glimmer of realization lit up their eyes when they saw her, and even as I hid in a hood and sunglasses, I bet they knew who I was, too. But Asuka shrugged off their stares. "Do you know the Tendo, or not?" she asked one woman. "This isn't the time for staring. Spit it out!"

But no one in the utility plant had seen that family. Asuka and I even stood at the stair back to ground level for a while, inspecting every newcomer to the basement, but after fifteen minutes with no one else arriving, Asuka grew restless. If the family wasn't in the utility plant, they could still be on the way, and if the Angel attacked in that time…

"Maybe we should go take a look," she said, glancing up the stairwell to the ground floor.

"And if we don't find them?" I asked. "Then what?"

"Then we did all we could."

"Friends of theirs might not see it that way."

Asuka climbed the first step of the stair, not even looking to see if I'd follow. "Then they'd be wrong," she said.

That was Asuka all right—very black and white, very certain about things. Even to this day, I'm not sure if she actually thinks that way or, if instead, she just puts on a show of it to justify what she thinks is best. Either way, not everyone can do that, I think. Some people let their doubts get to them in situations like these, or worse—they make snap decisions on instinct instead, with lives hanging in the balance.

In any case, Asuka hiked upstairs without even ten seconds of hesitation, and I followed after her, holding on to my sunglasses as we went. We swept the stairs with our flashlights to see the way. It wasn't much of a climb to the fourth floor anyhow.

With darkness around us, our flashlights made the walls seem unnaturally white. They glowed and reflected light, drowning out the rest of the hallway in glare—at least until we angled our lights further down, at any rate. I learned quickly to shine the light on the carpet instead. The carpet was dark, so the light coming off it was gentler.

And as we walked on that carpet, dark fluid seeped from Asuka's shoe impressions.

"Asuka," I said.

She glanced over her shoulder. "What?"

"Look."

I shined my flashlight at Asuka's feet. Her white shoes were practically bleeding the stuff.

"God!" Asuka kicked some of the LCL off, splattering it on the walls. "Somebody think it was clever to track all this in?" She waved for me to follow. "Come on, Shinji. I'm not getting much more of this goo on me. Let's go!"

She ran down the hallway, and I jogged after her, flashing my light on the door numbers. 434, 436, 438…at last, 446. Asuka stopped dead in her tracks there, shining her flashlight on the doorknob.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Asuka touched the doorknob with her pinky finger, and the door creaked open. She flicked her flashlight to the threshold, where a trail of LCL led from inside to the hallway carpet.

"We should go," I said. "There's nobody left inside. There can't be."

Asuka frowned, and the spot of her flashlight made small circles as she thought. "You sure about that?"

"Asuka…"

She crept inside, shining her flashlight at every corner or niche. I sighed, and I followed after her.

A wooden entryway led to the main room. Around the dinner table were three sets of plates and cushions. There were even some chopsticks and rice still left there. I shined my flashlight under the table, finding nothing but dust.

"Don't worry about that." Asuka waved her flashlight across the floor, casting light on a trail of amber droplets. They led through the main room, into the rear of the apartment. Asuka motioned to me to follow, and she took the lead. Each step she took was slow and careful—one foot in front of the other, from a three-quarters crouch.

We tracked the trail of LCL into a bedroom. A whipping wind poured in through a shattered window. It howled and roared, spitting drops of LCL onto the walls.

Despite the wind, the room felt damp and muggy. Humidity clung to my skin, and my nose went slick with sweat and oil.

Where was all that humidity coming from, you ask? The bed. It was dripping LCL onto the floor and soaked throughout. It was like someone had taken a two-liter bottle of the stuff and poured it all on the mattress. That's how sopping wet it was.

And sitting atop this dripping heap was a stuffed bear, with a white patch of fur tinted orange-yellow from the LCL.

Asuka trotted around the bed, checking beneath it. She slid the closet door open gently, flashing her light through a half-dozen plaid skirts and powder-blue blouses, but her search came up empty, save for a picture frame that she plucked from the dresser.

"Take a look," she said.

The frame was metallic, copper in color with engraved ridges. The subjects were a woman, a teenaged boy, and a younger girl, all posed with snow-capped mountains in the distance.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" said Asuka. "It'd be a shame if a family like that just disappeared, with no one ever knowing what happened to them."

I put the picture frame back on the dresser. "Let's hurry. It's drafty in here."

She put her hand up to her forehead in a faux salute. "Yes, Commander Ikari."

With a wink, Asuka headed back out to the hallway, following the trail of LCL to the washroom. Asuka's flashlight scanned over the sink and mirror, and the light reflected off a half-dozen hygienic tools that had been scattered over the floor: a nail file, a pair of nail clippers, a hair dryer, and so on. All of them shined with dried LCL splattered on top of them.

And further into the washroom, that LCL thickened into a quivering puddle. That puddle enveloped a pair of washroom slippers, a blue bathrobe, stained white socks…

"Shinji."

"What?"

Asuka shined her light on the door to the bath proper. It was a couple centimeters open, with trails of LCL running down its height.

"You want me to get it?" she asked.

I shook my head, and I drew the kitchen knife from my sweatshirt pocket. I shined my light on the gap, turning my body back and forth to move the flashlight in my sling-bound hand. I stuck the nail file into the gap, and with it, I forced the door open!

Revealing nothing but a half-full tub of water.

"Jesus Christ!" Asuka let out a heavy breath. "People should _never_ leave their doors closed like that!"

"So people like us will know that there isn't a monster hiding behind it?"

"Yes, that! Exactly that!"

There was nothing else to find in that washroom, but I kept the knife out just in case.

We scoured the rest of the apartment over the next fifteen minutes, finding a pile of LCL-soaked clothes in the kitchen and another within the sheets of the sopping wet bed we'd seen earlier. Three piles of clothes—that accounted for everyone in the apartment. As for who or what had done this, Asuka had a few theories:

"Maybe it's not the Angel's work," she said as we were leaving. "Maybe those Seele wackos found a way to replicate what First did."

We entered the main stairwell again, and our voices echoed throughout the building.

"How would they do that?" I asked her.

"Beats me. But if there's an Angel here, and if Misato is able to build another Eva, it's not out of the realm of possibility."

I opened my mouth to speak, but a _clunk_ - _clunk_ - _clunk_ sound reverberated through the stairwell from above.

Asuka turned her light upward. "Somebody's here," she whispered.

The heavy, almost metallic footseps remained steady. Asuka climbed up a flight, and her light scanned across something. She didn't catch it, but the glow cast the thing's shadow—a deformed, inhuman shadow.

"Asuka…"

The shadow's master jumped over a stairwell railing and dashed down the staircase above us.

I tugged on Asuka's sleeve. "Go?"

"Yeah, go!" she said, taking off. "Let's go!"

We raced down the stairs. Asuka slid on a railing but tumbled and slammed into a wall. Her flashlight clattered and blinked out, and we left it behind. The last I saw of it, the creature must've kicked it as it passed, for the light spun end over end as it fell down the stairwell shaft.

On the basement floor, Asuka slammed the stairwell door shut behind me.

"Hey, we need something to block the door!"

The residents looked back at us indifferently. No one even moved.

"I'm serious!" cried Asuka. "There's a thing coming; it—"

The doorknob turned; the creature reached the gap with its hand—a "hand" of long, needle-like fingers, arranged radially like a starfish. They gnashed together like an insect's jaws.

"Eugh!" Asuka threw her weight against the door, and I joined her, trying to shove the door shut. "We need some help here!" she yelled.

At last, some of our neighbors came to help. A man and a woman ran up and started pushing back on the door, too; we pinched the creature's arm inside the gap, and it gave off this incoherent shriek, too high in pitch for any of us to make sense of. The sound pierced us, and Asuka threw her shoulder against the door, so she could cover an ear with her hand. The door inched wider, and the creature's fingertips glowed with a rainbow light.

I turned the knife over in my left hand and stabbed!

"Go back where you came from!" I yelled, and I drove the knife into the fleshy part of the creature's arm. It shrieked, recoiling, and the arm retreated.

With that, a couple residents dragged a crate into place and sat on it, keeping the door closed.

For the moment, at least, for even as they sat there, the creature banged and pounded on the outside, and if you looked hard enough at the metal door, you might've seen a slight dent.

#

It's amazing what people can do when their lives are on the line. They'll throw their own bodies at maintenance closets to break the doors open. They'll rip apart wooden pallets with their bare hands, using the boards to barricade themselves.

They worked tirelessly—and so did the enemy. The creature gathered friends to help break our defenses. As we collaborated and discussed defensive strategies, the creatures exchanged shrieks and squeals. As we piled anything and everything in the basement to barricade the door, they used anything and everything in the building to break our defense. At one point, they banged on the door with metal and plaster. Sparks showered the base of the door, casting an irregular light through the gap there. The creatures wedged pieces of stairwell railing underneath, using them as levers. Some of our neighbors took apart a battery-powered lantern and rigged it to deliver a mild shock. A creature yelped in pain and dropped the railing piece straight away, but that didn't stop them for long. Eventually, they settled for just beating down the door with some kind of ram. The steady, unyielding rhythm of the ram became the ticking clock for our demise. _Bang_. Beat, beat. _Bang_. Beat, beat. _Bang_.

Asuka knew the situation was untenable. She made an appeal to the residents: "Does anyone have a radio?" she called out. "Anything at all?"

"Here!" A man pushed his way to the front of the room, holding up a satellite phone. "There's just, you know, one problem."

He showed us the face of the phone. _No signal._

Going higher up in the building was right out. There was another door to the rest of the building, sure, and once the first barricade had been finished, our neighbors had started building up another at that exit as well, but we wer uneasy about using it. No one wanted to risk running into one of those things in tight quarters. The stairwell offered too few options for retreat or defense.

That left outside. There was an exterior door that we worked to block off as well, but we hadn't heard any creatures outside trying to break it down, and overall, we felt better about the idea of trying to escape through the alley.

For that reason, Asuka asked the group for volunteers. "Is there anyone who'd be willing to go with this man? Anyone with combat experience who'd help protect him? For your families' sakes?"

"I would." A woman stepped forward, in short hair and with a silver necklace. "Whatever it takes to protect ourselves from those _things_ out there."

"Good. Anyone else?"

The total lack of movement in the room said _no_ , and Asuka scowled.

"Really? You can hear those things coming."

 _Bang_. Beat, beat. _Bang_. The door budged slightly, and Asuka kicked at a box to press back against it.

"You see it?" she said, pointing at the pile of junk. "The enemy is at the gate, and we have nothing else to stop them. You can't just sit there!"

"If we go outside, we make ourselves targets," said a man in a business suit. "The best thing to do is make ourselves too difficult to attack. Let those creatures go after easier prey. We just have to stall until the police or SDF can get to us."

Asuka shook her head at that. "How are they even going to know we're here, that we need help, if we don't tell them?"

The man in the business suit ignored Asuka, taking apart a piece of metal pipe and placing it with the pile of boxes and other scrap.

"That's the most useful thing we can do right now," he said, "unless you think you can kill one of those things with a pipe. That's all we have: pipes and wrenches and screwdrivers."

Well, that wasn't true at all. We had hammers, too. If nothing else, the utility plant had a wide array of tools to use, once we'd broken into some of the maintenance closets. Asuka armed the woman volunteer with a firefighter's axe. Asuka herself took a bottle of hot water and a hammer.

"You're going, too?" I asked.

"Of course." She shrugged it off like she was going to the store. "Someone has to have the pull to get help over here fast. If they know it's me on the line, that should do something." Asuka squeezed the water bottle, spraying a trail of water and steam across the floor. "Or do you want to go instead?"

I shook my head at that. "You'd leave me alone? Here?"

She touched my shoulder and smiled. "There's no way I'm letting a bunch of aliens stop me from getting back here. Just hold the fort while I'm gone."

Hold the fort. That meant keeping everyone calm and steady as the creatures beat down our barricade. That meant trying to convince people of what to do when the boxes budged.

My eyes narrowed a bit, as I looked over the mass of people in the plant—the families who settled under ducts or crammed themselves between boilers and water treatment machines. "But why can't I go with you?" I asked.

Asuka eyed me from the side. "You _want_ to go?"

"Yeah." I took my knapsack off and wrapped the straps around one arm, holding it as a shield. "I'm ready to go."

She poked her fingers at my sling-bound shoulder. I winced.

"You're not 100%," she said, rubbing the wound to soothe it. "Just relax; I'll be fine. Keep everyone's spirits high. We'll be back before you know it."

I gulped, and I nodded. "Okay. If you say so."

The residents broke down the barricade on the external door to the building's alleyway, and Asuka, the man, and the woman headed out, into the night.

#

While Asuka and the others searched to make contact with the outside world, the residents focused their efforts on bolstering our defenses. In Asuka's stead, much of that responsibility fell elsewhere. At first, there was some confusion about what to do and who would manage the situation, but after some time, a leader emerged.

"We'll need something stronger than this." A woman in a business suit pulled out a piece of plastic pipe from the main door barricade, and two levels of piled up junk shifted and collapsed. "Let's get some metal pipes here," she said, tossing the plastic one aside. "There's no time to waste."

The woman was a cabinet minister: the Minister of Consumer Affairs and Food Safety—or food _unsafety_ as we had said in the soup kitchen sometimes. Though her qualifications to reinforce a defensive "bunker" like ours may have been suspect, she didn't hesitate to dole out responsibilities among the residents.

But were the residents listening? That was another story. Sure, there were a few that piled on crates, pipes, or ductwork for the barricade, but many others sat around and watched without interest or care.

"We're gonna die here no matter what you do," said one man, who preferred to read a book by flashlight than lift a finger to help with the barricade.

The cabinet minister took exception to that. Hands on her hips, she stormed up to the man with the book. "Help's on the way," she said. "We could use someone else working to keep us alive long enough for that help to get here."

The man eyed the cabinet minister, and he very deliberately turned a page in his book, continuing to read.

Many others in the room were the same way. A mother declined to help, wanting to stay with her children and keep them from panicking. Others still put in only a token effort: work on the exterior door barricade stalled as two residents argued over the use of some paint cans. The two men bickered incessantly for the better part of fifteen minutes while the other residents around merely sat down and looked away.

To her credit, the cabinet minister recognized the problem. She did her best to intervene in the dispute, but her efforts were in vain: she was an administrator, not a diplomat. When the two men refused to back down, the cabinet minister tried to pick up the slack herself, but she couldn't keep that up for long. She wasn't a young woman: stacking up a bunch of paint cans didn't agree with her back. Organizing and leading were the things she could do.

But persuading people to follow her—to heed her call? That was difficult, too.

The minister pulled me aside at one point to talk about just that. We ducked between a pair of boilers, and she said,

"You know, I think we could use your help."

I offered her my lame arm. "I could try, but I'm not sure how useful I'd be."

The minister laughed. "That's not what I mean." She gestured to the rest of the room—mostly of our fellow residents camping out under lantern light. "Look, people are scared right now. Scared people don't work well and don't think clearly. We need all hands on deck."

"You're absolutely right, but…" I shrugged again. "What am I supposed to do about that?"

The minister looked over her glasses at me. "I'm not asking you to get up and lead the troops into battle yourself. Just talk to people. Tell them this is important. Tell them they _can_ make a difference, like you did."

My mouth hung open at that, but the minister wasn't about to listen to an argument. She slapped me on my shoulder—my bad shoulder, and I winced when she did—and she went on her way, seeing to the construction of some traps, should the enemy breach the barricades.

I pulled on my collar and rolled my neck. I let out a breath, and I approached one of the families near the boiler: a man, a woman, and two children. The woman was reading a story about a stuffed rabbit to the children, but I caught the man's eye and crouched down beside him.

"Hello," I whispered. "Uh, are you all doing well?"

"Yes, thank you," said the man. He had a thermos in hand, and he swung it in small circles, letting the liquid slosh inside. "The children are a little frightened, but their mother is keeping them calm, I think." He smiled at the woman, and the woman smiled and nodded in turn, all without missing a line in the story. "What can we do for you?" asked the man.

"We need volunteers to work on the defenses." I pointed out the entrances to the floor. "Barricades, traps—we need every able-bodied person not otherwise occupied."

The man frowned, looking at me from the side. "These are my children, Ikari. This is my family!"

"I know, I know," I said, showing him both hands to calm him. "But you can do something to protect them."

"Can I?" The man huffed. "I don't know anything about building things. I don't know anything about traps." He felt the grit on the utility plant floor and rubbed it between his fingers. "Here we are, reduced to grime and dirt and under siege from who-knows-what. What am I going to be able to do, really?"

"I—I—" I bowed my head. "I don't know."

The man nodded at that and raised both eyebrows, punctuating his point. I got up, and I let him be.

It's true he wasn't strictly needed. No one person—no particular person—was needed. And with that attitude, that fatalism, he might not have been that useful anyway.

I went back to our stuff—my spot with Asuka's and my bags. I camped out there on a beach blanket under the leaky pipe. I sat with my arms over my knees, taking up as little space as possible, and I waited.

I didn't talk to anyone else.

#

Until there was a banging on the alleyway door.

"Hey, it's us! Let us in!" came the muffled call.

A gaggle of residents, led by the cabinet minister, gathered at the barricade. The cabinet minister herself put an ear to the wall. "What's all that noise out there?"

"It's Soryu!" said the muffled voice. "We made contact with SDF, but the creatures are after us! Open the door!"

The cabinet minister started pulling paint cans from the stack, but she was alone: the other residents were like an army of garden gnomes.

"Hey!" she yelled. "Let's go; we've got neighbors out there!"

I joined the minister, pulling paint cans off the stack one at a time, but no one else stepped up to help.

"Please!" I said to them, putting two cans down to the side of the door. "This is my girlfriend; these are our friends and neighbors! They have the satphone! Please!"

One woman broke ranks with the rest of our neighbors, taking down some wood planks from the other side of the barricade, but for a long time—too long—it was just the three of us trying to take down the blockage. The cabinet minister had us work from the side, trying to cut a way through as soon as possible, but moving all that material took effort, and time.

"Hurry up!" yelled Asuka. "They're coming!"

We shifted one large barrel of industrial soap, and that cleared the way for the door to swing open—not a lot, but enough for a person to squeeze through.

"There, it's open!" the minister shouted back. "Come in, come in!"

The man with the satphone came first. It was a tight fit for him; the door's latch ripped his shirt, but the minister and the woman bystander took him by the arm and yanked him through.

The woman who'd gone outside came next. She slipped through more easily.

Asuka was last. She popped in without any trouble at all.

But something came after her. It darted halfway through the door, and though the woman who'd gone outside tried to close the way, the door slammed against the creature's body and bounced off.

That was my first good look at the thing: a white, pasty imitation of a man. It stood a head taller than anyone else there; its hulking body was pure muscle. It looked like it could rip a man in two with its bare hands.

And it had no mouth or nose—just a bony purple mask with five eyes.

The necklace woman tried to push again on the door, hoping to pin the beast there, but it had a hand free.

"Urk." A needle-like finger went through the woman's head.

Most of the residents ran or screamed, but the minister, the satphone man, Asuka, and I came to the woman's aid. Strangely, the wound didn't bleed; the "finger" was so narrow and sharp that the stab was like nothing at all. The woman's eyes still moved.

And she shrieked. "Ah…AHH!"

POP!

She burst like a water balloon. She burst into reddish goo, and her firefighter's axe clattered on the floor.

Then there was nothing and no one holding the door.

Asuka raised a hammer high in the air; she yelled and hollered and charged at the creature. The beast swiped at her, and its needle-like claws caught a tuft of Asuka's hair. Asuka stumbled; she hammered on the creature's arm and threw her body against the beast, pinning its wrist against the wall.

Others joined in the fray, too: the satphone man took up the dropped firefighter's axe and gashed the creature's shoulder.

Howling in agony, the creature presed a hand to its wound, and it melted. It dissolved on its own into a puddle of LCL, splashing my shoes and Asuka's alike with droplets of reddish-orange goo.

The group relaxed. The satphone man turned his axe over on its head and leaned on it like it was a walking stick. Asuka dropped her hammer and let out a heavy breath. She went to shut the alleyway door.

But the puddle of LCL was moving. It frothed and bubbled. The creature grew back out of it fully formed—and whole.

Asuka tried to shove the thing back out. "Don't you know how to die?" she cried.

She didn't have leverage, though; she struggled to push it back through the doorway.

So I ran in there. I barreled into the thing and drove it outside. In the alley, the moon and the building's shadow casting us in alternating light and black, I wrestled with the creature. "Shut the door!" I yelled, pinning the creature on its back. "Don't let it back in!"

"Don't be stupid!" cried Asuka. "We're not leaving you with that thing!"

"Asuka, don't argue! Just—urk."

I shuddered.

Something hurt me.

Something hurt in my head.

It was one of those needle fingers. It went through my forehead, just above and between my eyes.

The creature's gaze betrayed nothing. Its eyes expressed no emotion; it didn't even have a mouth to smile with.

But in that moment, I was _connected_ with it. The thing injected terror, loss, and pain into my mind: visions of death on lonely battlefields, sounds of babies crying without parents to care for them.

The sight of my father, staring at me and not bothering to fake a smile.

I shut my eyes and groaned, but then, I heard something else.

"Ikari."

The voice of a ghost. The voice of Rei Ayanami.

Ayanami stood before me, in her green and white middle school uniform, in black socks halfway to her knees and white shoes. It was a ridiculous image. It didn't belong there, but there she was.

And unlike the times I'd seen her before, this vision of Ayanami was different.

She offered a hand to me.

Her expression was no different—blank, like an unflinching observer studying traffic patterns or insect migrations. But still, her hand was there, and I accepted it. I reached out for her ghostly, glowing hand. Our fingertips met.

Squish!

My arm burst into fluid, and the rest of me followed soon after. The world went black.

#

The world went black, but I still heard something:

A humming sound.

It was the rhythmic, mechanical hum of a movie projector.

The world had gone black, but it was lighter than true darkness: it was the black that you only see on a movie screen that is still being lit up, even though there's nothing on the film.

I was sitting. The seats were velvety and dark magenta in color. The cup holders were black plastic, with a rough, bumpy texture on the outside.

I started; I pushed up to leave, but a hand caught me. A hand squeezed my own.

It was a pale hand, paler than any person's should be.

"It's all right." That was Ayanami; she sat next to me. "You're all right. You're safe."

I stammered. "But—but—what's going on? What is this place?"

She smiled. "You're here with me now."

"Ayanami…"

I trailed off, staring at her, but the thing that looked like Rei Ayanami paid me no mind. She waved a hand, and the movie screen came to life. It showed a moonlight alleyway with a puddle of LCL near a door. A green hooded sweatshirt, a sling, and a knife lay in the puddle. A white creature stalked about a nearby stairwell, looking for prey.

"Don't be afraid," she said, watching the scene. "You don't have to go back there anymore."

#

When you've been involved with Eva at some point, something about it stays with you—even when you try to rest, even when you try to sleep. There's something infectious about it that stays in your mind. It takes form in your dreams, and once grown this way, the idea of Eva—and all that comes with it—never truly leaves you.

To me, being involved with Eva used to be very claustrophobic and confining. It's little wonder that, in my dreams, those feelings took the form of a train. Trapped within an empty traincar, with blinding sunlight streaming in across from me, that traincar was my cage. I spoke with an Angel there. I spoke with friends there. During my time as an Eva pilot, that traincar never let me go.

So used to the traincar was I that, well, I was a little surprised not to be there again.

The theater wasn't unusual in any way. Granted, a mechanical projector struck me as a little old-fashioned, but the seats were typical—even a bit uncomfortable. The seat only went about halfway up my back, for instance.

If I even had a back that could feel uncomfortable.

No, whatever that place was, the sensations there were real. The roughness of the cup holders irritated my fingertips, for instance.

And the pale hand that held mine was hot to the touch.

"Excuse me," I offered weakly, and I pulled my hand away.

Ayanami turned slightly, looking at me with one eye. "Good morning."

I raised an eyebrow. "Is it morning?"

Her eyes fell off me; she went back to watching the screen.

I looked her up and down. From her red eyes and blue hair, she was without a doubt the image of someone I'd known once—whatever that meant in this world.

"So," I said, fumbling for words, "you're alive?"

"No," she said, with a slight shake of the head.

"You're not?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I am everywhere and nowhere," she said, staring at the screen. "Past and future are the same to me."

Try as I might, I couldn't catch Ayanami's gaze. She studied the movie screen with analytic intent.

I followed her eyes. The camera looked from overhead at the building's alley. One of those creatures beat mercilessly on the alleyway door, but the door held firm: inside, the barricades were back in place. Our neighbors were safe.

Asuka was safe.

"I guess I should thank you," I said.

Ayanami looked at me with one eye again, saying nothing.

"For saving me," I explained.

She broke her gaze once more, staring ahead. "You are a friend."

The scene shifted—to another block, another city?—as uniformed SDF members took the battle to the creatures. In silence, they fired their guns, tossed grenades, and marked hordes of creatures with lasers for distant bombardment, but it was largely for nothing. Mobs of the manlike aliens overran humvees and armored vehicles, ripping metal apart with their bare hands.

Just as one of those creatures pried open a tank hatch, I turned aside.

"What's going on here?" I muttered. "Why is this happening?"

Ayanami bowed her head. "I'm sorry. You can watch something else if you like."

"No, it's fine, really," I said, pulling on my collar and gulping. "I just wanted to know, I guess, for when I go back."

Ayanami's mouth hung open a little. "You want to go back?"

I scratched the back of my head. "Of course. Asuka's there. Misato is there. I can't leave them."

She shook her head, and she stared at the screen again. "I can't protect you indefinitely. Everything I do has a cost."

"A cost?" I said.

Ayanami waved her hand, and the scene before us shifted and blurred. An image formed of some SDF members holding a bridge against the creatures. A spray of bullets rang out; SDF members fired in bursts, but the creatures advanced anyway. One creature cleaved through an SDF member's rifle, reducing the man to firing with his pistol. From point-blank range, he fired into the creature's chest:

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!

And nothing happened. The creature didn't even flinch. The SDF member turned his pistol aside and fled, but the creature stabbed him in the head with its needle-like fingers, and with a cry and shriek of terror, the SDF member dissolved.

The sounds of battle faded out, rendering the remaining fight in a slideshow of light and color, nothing more.

"Do you see now?" asked Ayanami, still watching the scene.

I gulped and nodded, averting my gaze.

"If you go back," she said, "there may be others I can't save."

"So I'm supposed to stay here?" I beat my fist on the armrest. "I'm supposed to stay and wait in safety, to watch while everyone else goes to fight? No way. I know how to fight."

"Like you did just now?"

I nodded—once, twice, several times. "If that's what it takes."

At that, Ayanami hung her head, and she gripped her armrest a little tighter. "You aren't a fighter anymore. You don't have Eva to protect you. You have courage, but you don't have the means to fight."

I sighed, pressing my hands against my head. "Then what am I supposed to do?" I said.

"I don't know." She stared ahead with narrowed eyes. "I can protect you, even if you can do nothing. I can protect you, even at the cost of others. Is that what you want?"

I scoffed, looking over the scene before us. The pale creatures stalked innocent people in their homes, dissolving them at will. Creatures roamed the streets in gangs. They cast long shadows of the moon on the roads, and when those shadows passed, everything human fell apart behind them.

And Ayanami watched this unfold, unfazed and unmoved.

"This is impossible!" I said, turning away. "How can you look at that? Why even watch?"

"These are my children," she said, "and I watch over them."

I shied away from her, scooting aside in my chair. "Ayanami?"

She closed her eyes. "No."

"No?" I shuddered. "Then you _are_ —"

Her eyes snapped to me, and my throat closed up.

"I am not the person you knew." Her tense expression melted; she broke into a smile. "But I am me. I am myself, and I am still your friend. That is my promise to you."

I looked into her eyes for a time and nodded. Ayanami hesitated for a moment before turning back to the view. In that silence, I cleared my throat, saying,

"So you watch over us, as a mother would."

She nodded.

"Then how can you stand this?" I gestured at the screen. "How can you bear to watch as people are fleeing and hiding in panic? How can you sit there as they're reduced to liquid?"

Ayanami pressed her lips together for a moment. "I'm trying to stop it."

"That's good for you, then," I said, running my fingers through my hair and staring at the ceiling. "I'm glad someone can do something about this."

"So can you." She watched me with one eye, but as soon as that red iris settled on me, I shook my head.

"No, no, absolutely not. I'm not that kind of person."

She cocked her head. "Then why do you read their letters?"

"Because they're desperate!" I slammed my fist on the armrest, and it bounced off its hinge. "They're desperate and unhappy, and why? Because I put them there!" I slapped my chest. "I put them there, and I don't have the answers to get them out." I sighed, and I buried my face in my hands. "I'm just a kid. I'm just a kid, all right? I don't have what you have; I can't do what you can do. I'm just a kid. I didn't try to make a decision for everyone else; I just wanted to do what was right for me."

"So it's not right for them?" Ayanami leaned closer, over the armrest. "They would be better off in the sea?"

I turned away. I dug my hands in my pockets and kicked at the floor, hoping there'd be some popcorn I could shuffle around, but there wasn't.

Ayanami sat back in her chair, but she was still looking at me. "I didn't ask people to look to me for guidance," she said, "but they do."

My head rose. "What are you saying?"

"People will write letters to you, whether you want them or not."

I shook my head. "The people who write to me—they don't really want letters in response."

Ayanami raised an eyebrow.

"I can't give them what they want." I threw my hands at my thighs and ran my fingers down to my knees and back again. "They want to know it's going to be all right. I can't give them that."

Ayanami turned an eye to me. "But you'd fight anyway?"

"Of course!" I said, nodding.

"Then tell them what you feel," she said, facing forward again, "and that you'd fight anyway."

I frowned. "Even though I have doubts?"

"That's the first thing you should say. They have doubts, too."

"Really?"

She nodded. "And so do I."

I sighed, and I looked up, to the dark, formless ceiling—then to the light of the projector at the back of the room. They say light gives hope, right? Perhaps that was true in the real world, but here, the projector's light left me wanting more. There was a great neutrality in it. It was whatever you wanted to make of it. It was hope and warmth if you wanted it to be. It was cold and emotionless if you feared it would be.

Maybe that was true of a lot of things. You had to make of them what you wanted to make, or else they'd turn to everything you dreaded instead.

My eyes turned forward again, to the screen—to the faded image of a city under siege, with gunfire punctuating the night.

"Ayanami," I said, "I can't stay here."

She nodded. "I know."

"Will I see you again?"

"Yes." She smiled, ever-so-slightly. "That's a promise, too."

I smiled too, but it wasn't my place to stay. Ayanami had her work to do, and so did I. I admit, though, I thought Ayanami had it easier than I did. She had power. She had the ability to see, the prescience to know what was in people's hearts. I had no such luxury.

I took one last look around the theater—the peculiar place I hoped never to visit again—and I saw something I'd missed on my first glance:

A figure in a satin hood.

It sat at the end of the row, far from us. It watched the film as well. It didn't move a muscle. It didn't say a word.

"Ayanami," I whispered, leaning closer to her, "who is that?"

"Me," she said.

I spun around, but again, Ayanami wasn't even looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on the screen.

"Pardon?" I said, incredulous.

"Someone like me," she said.

And she gripped the armrest a little tighter.

#

When I came to, water dripped off me. I shivered, gasping for breath. I rolled over, climbed to my feet, and beat my fist on the door.

"Hey!" I whispered, trying not to make too much noise. "Anybody in there?"

"Shinji?" That was Asuka. "You got popped, didn't you? How…?"

I shivered again. My skin was sticky; my clothes were drenched. "It's a long story," I said. "Can I come in?"

It took a little while, but our neighbors disassembled the barricade and let me sneak inside. Asuka draped me in a towel, which helped immensely. A hug on top of that wasn't unwelcome, either.

"Welcome home," she said softly, and she planted a kiss on me for good measure.

Then she made a face.

"What?" I said.

"You taste a little like blood."

"Oh, so no more kisses for me?" I complained.

She scoffed. "Please. I didn't say that."

Only Asuka could manage to kiss me, pin me against a wall, and rub my hair clean of LCL all at the same time. She was a wonder all right.

Unfortunately, she couldn't hold that kiss forever. "Okay, that'll have to do," she said when she pulled away. "We've got work to do."

I blinked. "We do?"

Asuka's eyes flickered aside, to the door on the other end of the floor. Three men were putting all their body weight against the barricade, but the pile was still sliding back in fits and spurts . We'd have to make a stand there, in the utility plant, until help arrived.

Asuka and the consumer affairs minister took the lead again, coordinating the residents in an organized defense plan—no longer would we just try to hold the creatures at bay. They were coming in, and we'd have to fight them on our turf.

That was our advantage, Asuka pointed out. We could prepare the battlefield for them.

We set up a kill zone around both the interior door (leading to the rest of the building) and the exterior door (leading to the alley outside). The bulk of the residents relocated outside the kill zone, huddling in corners or under pipes. We extinguished our lamps there, leaving only the kill zone lanterns lit: our enemies would be visible for all to see, while we lurked in the shadows.

And we armed ourselves with tools: wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, and the like. I'd left my knife outside, and no one was about to open the door to let me get it. Asuka handed me a metal-encased flashlight, instead. "Use it to surprise them," she said, "or use it as a club."

"As a club?" I said, and I swung feebly with my left arm. It wasn't a coordinated motion by any means.

"Something wrong with your other arm?" She squeezed my right shoulder, and I flinched—I flinched without pain. I opened my hand and wiggled my fingers, staring at them.

"Your arm looks good to me," said Asuka. "I guess reverting to LCL every now and then can be good for your health."

I rolled my shoulder around a bit. I switched the flashlight to my right hand and felt the weight of it. For the moment, that flashlight was nothing but a cold, useless shell of metal. There was nothing to be done with it while we sat and waited for the enemy to come.

#

And they did come.

They broke the door off its hinges and burst through the pile of junk. They stood strong and tall. There was something bizzarely beautiful about them. Great, hulking muscles gave them an athletic look. They were perfect physical specimens that way, and as they walked, their spongy toe-pads gave them springy, fluid steps, as though they were always in total balance.

Three creatures pushed through the barricade, and they fanned out through the kill zone. In the darkness, a group of us lay in wait as one of the creatures came our way. It tip-toed down a passage between water treatment machines, looking back and forth as it went along. Its eyes scanned back and forth—a surreal sight against the three false eyes on its facial mask. Those eyes never moved.

Not even when the creature fell flat on its face.

The creature writhed and shrieked, sloshing about on the ground. It tried vainly to scramble to its feet, but each time it tried, its toe pads slipped, kicking up dark fluid.

Ah, the wonders of machine oil, right?

The creature's two comrades raced to its aid, but they hesitated at the edge of the passageway, just outside the slick of oil. That was all the time we needed, for two of our residents lined up on the opposite end with a heavy metal bucket. Wearing thick rubber gloves, they splashed liquid down the whole passageway, and the creature fizzled and burned, and the two residents admired their work.

"Hey!" cried the cabinet minister, watching from behind. "Don't stand there and watch. Reload the drain cleaner!"

That was our work: with only a couple buckets capable of holding such corrosive chemicals, we had to be cautious. Each pair of bucket operators had a third resident to sort through drain cleaners, bleach solutions, and other industrial chemicals we had access to. These creatures were still flesh and blood, after all. They could burn and writhe just as well as we did.

But with the creature's two companions standing over their fallen comrade, the cabinet minister thrust her arm out, stopping the bucket carriers.

"Wait!" she said. "Watch what they do."

The creatures—each one indistinguishable from the others—never even made a move as their comrade shrieked and screamed in pain. Its high-pitched warbles rang through the room like a tinny piano.

The creature dissolved itself, but its LCL still bubbled as acid intermixed with it. That tinny shriek? It lingered in the room, even once the creature had gone.

And the other creatures ignored their comrade's plight. They chattered with one another in their unintelligible tongue, and they left, for a moment.

"What are they doing?" said one of the residents. "Going back outside?"

Asuka shook her head. "Don't think they're the type to say, 'Fuck it, we're outta here,' " she quipped, and she went back for another bucket.

And she was right. The creatures came back with a full wooden crate. They shoved it into the oil slick, displacing black goo from the floor. Then, they went back to the barricade for another crate.

Asuka tapped one of the chemical handlers on the shoulder and passed the bucket ahead. "When they come back with that box, hit them again."

The chemical handler nodded, and the pair took another loaded bucket, swinging it back and forth to gain momentum for the toss.

The creatures hurled another create down the passageway, and one of them leapt from dry floor to one box, to another, and across to our safe side of the passage, towering over the bucket handlers.

The rest of the residents fled, and Asuka, the cabinet minister, and I brought up the rear. "Hit it!" cried the minister. "Hit it now!"

The bucket handlers splashed the creature at point-blank range. Acid splattered everywhere, even…

Well, there's just no avoiding some of a bucket full of acid when you're splashing something right beside you. Even with rubber gloves, there's no way.

For that, I'm thankful the creature—even as the acid burned through its skin—took the time to dissolve both the bucket handlers before it melted in turn.

That's the only thing that saved us from our neighbors' screams.

After that, our carefully plotted defense effort crumbled. We fled down the passageway to another chokepoint, where the cabinet minister had set up a second oil slick. We overturned the oil and left the way behind us impassable—for a while, at least, but there was still one creature lurking. I shined my flashlight on it, and we all saw: it crossed the first slick easily, but without more boxes or other tools to get after us, it darted down another hallway, searching for a way around.

"Everybody behind the second level!" Asuka called out. "Fall back and regroup!"

"Regroup for what?" asked one of our neighbors, the man who preferred to read rather than help build the barricade. "That thing will just find another way to get at us."

"We still have plenty of drain cleaner," said the cabinet minister, her brow furrowed as she thought. "We can put together another defensive stand."

A man in our group didn't see it that way. He stopped walking.

"This is pointless," he said. "I'm tired; I'm not running anymore."

"Come on!" cried Asuka. "It's not much further!"

But the man stood firm. "I don't have to listen to you! You're not a leader, Soryu!" He glared at her, then at the cabinet minister. "And what do you know?" he demanded. "You're a politician; you deal with nutrition requirements and workplace safety rules! If we're going to be dissolved again, I'm going to meet that on my terms!"

The cabinet minister narrowed her eyes, but Asuka got a word in first.

"If you think they're going to win and give up fighting them, then they've already won!" Asuka called down the hallway. "You chose to come back, didn't you? Stand up and fight for it!"

The man snarled. "Fight for it? The way your boyfriend has? All he can do—all any of us can do—is throw ourselves at those things until they take us all out." The man met my gaze. "You know it, don't you?"

Asuka pulled on her own hair and scowled. Some others in the group started to follow the man, and they had every reason to.

"Forget about them," said the minister, turning her back on the rest. "We have to take care of ourselves now."

A pit in my throat choked me, leaving me open-mouthed and staring dumbly. I looked both ways down the hallway. I had a sense of something—of Ayanami? Was she there? Was she watching us, even then? No, there was no sign of her, but I felt Ayanami must've been there anyway. I could imagine her watching over us the way she had on that fantastic tower, the tower that didn't connect to the ground, that lay beneath a pure white sky. Her stare never wavered.

"Stop!" I shouted.

That word fell from my lips, and with it, all our neighbors stopped to look at me. The cabinet minister gaped in surprise. Even the angry man glanced at me from afar.

"Stop!" I said again. "So what if the only thing we can do is throw ourselves at those things? That doesn't make it wrong to try."

"There is no point in trying something that's futile," said the man, shaking his head and he headed further down the hall. "We can't beat them!"

"I'm not asking you to beat it," I said, storming after him. "Asuka isn't asking you to beat it. The minister isn't asking you to beat it. We're asking you to show you still believe in standing here!" I stomped my foot on the floor. "Stand here!" I said, "with your own two legs!" I clasped my hands together, begging. "As long as you believe that, then what they're doing doesn't matter. We can come back from it."

"You believe that?" asked the concerned father, scoffing. "Or are you just saying it?"

"I don't know this is better, but…" I scanned the hallway. One of the residents had left a sledgehammer behind, but it was still intact, still a good weapon. I picked up the sledgehammer and thrust it into the angry man's hands. "Take the opportunity to find out," I told him.

Asuka trotted after me. Without a word, she put a hand on my shoulder and smiled, but the other residents' reactions were mixed. Some of them shook their heads and moved on. Others, like the angry sledgehammer man, hesitated a bit.

They wouldn't have long to think about it.

"EEYAH!" A scream echoed through the halls. "They're coming through the middle passage!"

Asuka grimaced, and she drew her ball-peen hammer, raising it overhead. "All of you—come with us or go. It's up to you and what you can live with. Come on, Shinji!"

She ducked down a side passageway, hopping over a pair of ducts that ran across the path, and I went after her. We ran to the intersection of the middle passageway with this path, where the cabinet minister had another group of residents together. In the faint light of a lantern, they cowered and ran from the creature—which moved freely through the halls like a panther scouring the jungle for prey.

"Watch out!" cried one of our neighbors. "Spilled acid down there!"

Acid had eaten through one of the floor ducts, leaving an oval-shaped gap, as though a giant had bitten down and chewed on part of the tubing. Asuka sized up the gap and leapt gingerly over it, and I did the same.

Just in time to face the last creature.

"Get down!" cried Asuka.

I ducked, and the creature's needle-like fingers sank into the wall. Asuka swung her hammer head at the creature, but the beast yanked its hand free and scampered back, only to be cut off by another group of residents wielding mops and brooms. That kept the creature at some distance, but with one swipe of its claws, it shattered two broom handles, spraying us with a shower of splinters.

Even those shattered handles—they made my flashlight look pathetic by comparison. The short metal casing hardly had any reach! I looked down to the flashlight in my hand, and I laughed to myself. I laughed, and I turned the flashlight around. I fingered the rubber switch and pressed down.

That's how a human being—a thinking, rational creature—uses a tool.

A spot of light blanketed the creature, and it shied away from the beam with its arm covering its eyes.

"Everyone!" I called out. "Get some flashlights; get some light on it! Don't let it look any direction without some glare!"

At once, the dark hallways of the utility plant came to life, with beams of light criss-crossing the array of pipes, ducts, and metal walkways. From each direction, we slathered the creature in blinding, focused light, and as it cowered and shielded its eyes, our neighbors beat and stabbed the creature. It bled sticky LCL that oozed from each wound, but I kept my light on it, despite the stomach-churning image in front of me.

That was, at least, until the creature swung blindly at me, knocking my flashlight to the floor. The metal case clattered on the floor, and the light reflected harmlessly off a steel pipe. And with the light from my end pointed away, the creature lowered its arm, blinked, and saw Asuka and me clearly.

I turned to run, but I stumbled over the damaged duct on the floor. I scrambled for footing, but the creature lurched after me, its needle-like fingers shining in the others' lights.

WHAM!

A sledgehammer head bashed the creature aside, hurling it against some machinery.

"Sorry I'm late," said the angry man, resting the sledgehammer on his shoulder. "Did I miss much?"

#

The creature, wounded beyond saving, dissolved on its own into a puddle of LCL. That didn't mean it gave up; it tried to grow back even from that state, but we threw some lye on the remains for good measure. That, we discovered, was a good way to make one of those thing stay dead.

SDF arrived not much later, bearing food, water, and canisters of sand to keep to make sure the creatures, once "killed," would never return. The SDF members swept the rest of the building for threats and stayed on the city block for the rest of the night, maintaining security and safety against the threat.

As for what that threat was, I didn't find out until morning. The power had yet to come back, but the SDF members were kind enough to give Asuka and me access to a radio once the area had been cleared. We crouched within an SDF armored vehicle and shared a headset, and that was the first time that night we heard from a friend.

"I'm sorry you've had such an eventful night," said Misato, her voice crinkling with static. "Are you both okay?"

"Shinji's better than he was before," said Asuka, poking at my shoulder. "But Misato—what about that Angel?"

"The Angel's still on the loose, spreading as many of those creatures as it can across the earth. Now that Tokyo-2 is secure, for the moment, we're getting ready to launch an operation to take that Angel down. Hopefully it won't lead to more adventures for you two."

Asuka rapped her knuckle on the radio casing. "Hopefully it does! No way we're lying down while Angels invade again! Get these people of yours to take us over there. We're helping with this. Even if I have to scrub a goddamn toilet in your base, we're helping with this."

"Is that true?" asked Misato. "Shinji, do you feel that way, too?"

A silence. Asuka looked to me, but she looked aside just as quickly. I sat back, staring through the front windows of the vehicle as the sun rose over Tokyo-2, and I frowned.

I said before that Third Impact left a scar on us. Scars don't heal completely, and I think that was true then, too. The damage we suffered from that time—from having everything inside us laid bare—could never be undone. Because of that, we'd come to expect disasters and unhappiness.

Maybe we'd become too comfortable with it—too adjusted, too well-adapted.

Maybe what we needed was the courage to make sure the next disaster never came. Either that, or the hope that we could affect the wide and inhospitable world, in spite of everything.

"Yes, Misato," I said. "Whatever I can do, I want to be a part of this."

I couldn't see Misato's face through the radio, of course, but she responded with the kind of unbridled warmth and optimism that I hadn't even realized I'd missed.

"In that case," said Misato, "let's go save the world."


	3. The Sixth Child

**The Sixth Child  
** _Chapter Three_

You know, Nerv had to be out of their minds to trust mankind's fate to middle-schoolers like us.

We were young, damaged, sexually confused teenagers. We had no idea what we were doing. We had no idea who we really were or what we wanted out of life. And yet, Nerv trusted us to take care of humanity. I have to wonder: were they that desperate? Or were they looking for soldiers who still had a chance to win yet were young enough and immature enough to be controlled, or broken, when the time for Third Impact came?

Knowing my father, I can only think it was the latter, but he didn't have full control over our fates, either. Still, if you didn't live in that time, it must be unfathomable to think that we ever put humanity's future in the hands of children.

It must be even more unfathomable to think that we did it twice!

You have to realize something about children, though: I'm not sure children really understand bravery. They know the concept, and they know it's something good, but piloting Eva—it's not a snap decision. It's not something you can decide to do with courage in your heart and then be done with it. Bravery is a rush of emotion that ebbs away with time. Piloting Eva is a grind. It's not something a child can be brave for.

It's something a child convinces herself to do.

#

For my part, I was just floored that we still had to use children at all, but the truth of the matter sunk in as we were on the way to the bunker. Misato explained what she could over the radio, and when she told me there was another pilot—someone else like Asuka and me—I couldn't believe it. Why, after all we'd gone through, did she subject someone else to that, too?

"What would you rather do?" Misato argued, her voice tinged with static. "Would you trust all our lives to some mindless clone? I wouldn't. I admit it's difficult and painful, but I will do everything I can to shield a pilot from hardship. I do that because I'd rather put my faith in people."

People. Despite the bloody rain that had fallen on the capital, people were everywhere. Our motorcade took us past armed checkpoints with dozens of SDF members standing by. It took us by tents where thirsty civilians sought water and safety. Teams of men and women patrolled the streets, filling in puddles of LCL with sand. Survival was a cooperative effort, and all mankind was involved in it.

That was the case at our destination, as well: National Square. SDF manned several tents there for coordination and logistics, and at least three convoys of infantry and refugees arrived just while we made our way through. For the moment, our place wasn't with the refugees and aid workers. I could not help pass out water or meal packets. I was needed elsewhere.

Our escort took us to the Defense Agency building, and from there, we headed downstairs to the secret train station. The place was as inhospitable and bleak as ever. The lights in the train tunnel were as white and harsh. The SDF members who rode with us weren't very chatty, either.

"We're just here to escort you to the general, sir," said the leader.

And so we rode on, in uncomfortable silence, to the bunker with no name.

Unlike the first time Misato showed me around, that day the base was bustling. Armed guards stood watch at every stairwell entrance. Fireteams in full armor and combat gear stormed through the halls, as though they had appointments with the aliens and were running late. I can't remember the soldiers' faces, though. Like those featureless cream-colored walls, they all blended together after a while.

The busy atmosphere had taken hold in the control room, too. People shuffled in and out with binders and notebooks. Misato had a group of four staffers hanging on her every word, scribbling down orders, and flipping through pages upon pages of reports and communiques. Only when Hyuga waved for her attention did she notice we were here.

"Oh thank goodness," she said, pushing through the crowd of staffers. "Now I can do some actual work for a change. Shinji, Asuka, good to have you both helping us. Ready to stave off the end of the world?"

"Whatever it takes," said Asuka. "Where do you want us?"

"Here." That was Maya Ibuki, who offered Asuka a seat at one of the cubicles on the right side. "We'd really appreciate your help giving a pilot's insight into the technical side of things. That combination of experience is a luxury here."

Asuka took her seat and looked over the readouts. "There are only two experienced Eva pilots left in this world, so of course I'm a rare commodity. Isn't that obvious?"

Maya chuckled nervously, looking to Misato for help. Misato nodded.

"I see someone's confidence hasn't diminished," said Misato. "Hold on to that and make yourself useful. You work for _me_ now. Understand?"

Asuka did a quick salute, even as she moved windows around on the touch-screen panels. Really, she seemed to fit rightin, while I—I was still standing up. I caught Misato's eye, and she winced.

"Sorry, Shinji. We have something in mind for you, too."

Misato handed me a headset and motioned to the back of the room, where there was an elevated platform and station. Misato sat down at that station with an array of four monitors in front of her. Hyuga and I took seats in the row just in front of her. Hyuga logged me into the system with a few keystrokes, and I plugged my headset into the front panel of the computer case. At that moment, though, the default feeds on the monitors were completely blank, save for one panel with an array of different listings: Master, Operations, Neural, and Plugcom. Each loop managed a different set of controllers and systems. Hyuga explained that I would have access only to the Operations and Plugcom loops.

"Where does Plugcom go?" I asked.

Hyuga laughed, but when he saw I was serious, he explained it simply:

"To the pilot, Shinji."

My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, but Hyuga put his own headset on and took his seat. That's when Misato spoke up.

"Good morning, everyone," she said, just one seat behind me. "Shall we get started?"

Her voice came through the headset just a fraction of a second after I heard her behind me. Surely there had to be some way to fix that? I fumbled through the controls looking for some setting as Misato went through numerous safety checks and status reports before launch. Everything from armor integrity to temperature regulation—the works.

Midway through the checklist, I finally heard the person on the other end of the radio loop. Misato finished checking in with the Telemetry controllers, and she looked to Hyuga and me.

"Plugcom?" she asked.

Hyuga tapped his monitor and depressed a switch on his headset line. "Fourteen, Control."

A girl's voice answered him—a steady, even bored voice. "Hi there. Oh, what was it I'm supposed to say? Hi Control? Something like that?"

Laughing, Hyuga sat back in his chair. "Something like that, yes. How are you doing?"

"I'm breathing warm liquid that smells like blood, so I think I've had better days. Can we go?"

Hyuga looked back to Misato, both of them chuckling.

"Honestly, that girl," said Misato, shaking her head, but when she flipped the switch on her headset line, she was all business, with only a hint of levity in her voice. "Plugcom is _go_ ," she said. "Give me aerial on screen one, cage on two, and launch site on three, please."

The three main screens at the front of the room flickered to life. On the far left was a plot of green lines that I couldn't quite understand, but the middle screen was a video feed of some mountainside, with a large, cleared area—a square concrete pad with a seam running down the middle. "Danger - Elevator," it read, with the words stenciled in red, but the platform opened up, revealing a shaft beneath.

And lastly, there was the Evangelion on the launch catapult.

Unit-14—a dark behemoth. Where the Eva I had known had been lithe to a fault—too tall by proportion to be truly human—Unit-14 was a shorter, burly creature. The spikes on its helmet were almost as tall as its head and neck. If my Eva and Asuka's had been like lean predators—like birds of prey, or hunting cats—Unit-14 was like an entirely different beast:

It was like a bear.

A bear in shiny, forest green armor, with only hints of black accents near its joints. Its six eyes—in two rows of three—were the only bright things about it. They glowed with a pure, searing white, a shade of white that was murderous for its penetrating power.

And the time had come for Unit-14 to kill.

"Start the clock," said Misato.

On Misato's command, one of the master clocks at the front of the room reset to thirty seconds and counted down. The controllers went through their final checks during the launch process—checking that the launcher motors had warmed up correctly and such. The digits on the clock ticked down, and when they hit zero—

SHING! The Eva vanished up the launch chute, and when the cage elevator reached the surface, it lurched slightly against the restraints, which released with explosive blasts. The Eva stumbled off the launch platform, like a child coming off an exciting ride. Well, if that child was a hulking beast looming over a mountainside, anyway.

"All right," said the pilot. "Where am I going?"

"We're getting you navigation data right now, Fourteen, standby," said Hyuga, who glanced back to Misato.

"Give her some waypoints," Misato said on the master loop. "Put navigation on one and give me target visual on two."

The first screen flickered to a topographical map with a route through the mountains back to town. The second screen changed to an airborne camera, which captured within a pair of crosshairs the Eva's target:

A massive, gyroscopic Angel.

It spun incessantly. Its outermost ring tumbled forward slowly, and then second ring turned perpendicular to it. Each ring further in spun faster than the last, to the point that the innermost rings were just blurs to human eyes, or even seemed to spin the wrong way—at least according to the camera. The Angel floated over roads and forest, with its spinning rings kicking up a breeze as it passed.

The Angel's target was an artillery battalion. Capital Perimeter Defense had started fighting back a horde of creatures along the Nagano Expressway, and the Angel flew to intercept this battle. The controllers guided the pilot to do the same.

"Defend the battalion from the Angel's attacks," said Hyuga, "and let's all go home safe."

"You're making it sound easy, Control," said the pilot.

Hyuga bowed his head and fought back a smile. "Would you like it better if we sounded more desperate down here?"

"Maybe."

The Eva lumbered toward its target at a steady pace— _thump_ , _thump_ , _thump_. It crossed rivers and valleys in deliberate, measured leaps, never seeming to exert itself, never seeming to be in a great hurry. With that deathly stare on its face, you couldn't mistake this for laziness or indifference. No, the Eva's arrival was inevitable, and as it had barreled across the countryside effortlessly, it would push through the Angel just the same.

But confident though the pilot may have been, Angels have a way of surprising you.

When the Angel approached the artillery batteries, the artillery commanders didn't even seem fazed. They kept firing off their shells, laying waste to hills and the advancing throng of creatures, of "walkers," that advanced on their position. Plane-mounted cameras showed us the creatures suffering from the bombardment. The explosions ripped their bodies apart, and when they tried to reform, another cluster of impacts would tear them back down again.

But the Angel inserted itself between the artillery and their targets. Though shells passed through gaps in its rings harmlessly, the Angel whirled and spun. It spun so fast that all its rings blurred.

To the camera's eye, even the images of clouds and mountains behind the Angel twisted and bent.

Artillery shells warped through the Angel and came back around, blasting the ground far short of their targets. And the Angel? The Angel advanced on the artillery battalion, kicking up dirt and trees in an earthen wake. The battalion retreated, turning their barrels around and breaking down the highway on their tank-like tracks.

But a fast getaway for those self-propelled howitzers was something like forty kilometers per hour. They strained and lurched for speed on the empty highway, but the Angel ground up pavement and cement bridges behind them, ripping asphalt from the ground without even touching it. One of the artillery pieces spun out, tumbling, and—

A flash!

A white, saturating flash blinded the camera, leaving only a few misplaced crosshairs behind. Static and low-frequency warblings burst through the radio, and readouts of the Eva's telemetry went blank.

"Fourteen?" cried Hyuga, pressing his headset to his ear. "Fourteen, do you read?"

The light faded, leaving a barrier of concentric octagons between the Angel's outer ring and the hand that held that ring in place:

The Eva's hand.

"I'm a little busy here, Control!" the pilot said. "Is there something you wanted to say?"

Hyuga stared at the image on the middle screen, and he shook his head. "No, Fourteen. Carry on."

The Eva punched at the AT field, but the Angel twisted and spun, wrenching itself free. Its AT field came back together whole, and it zoomed backward. Ripples of air and light coursed through the environment, and even the airborne camera wobbled as they passed by.

But as the Angel gave ground, the Eva took advantage of all the space it ceded. Unit-14 charged and leapt after the Angel with all the grace and dexterity of a circus acrobat or a ballet dancer—a strange image given the Eva's lumbering shape. As the Angel fled down the highway, the Eva gave chase, bounding over road signs and across highway dividers. It was a coordinated, deliberate pursuit.

"She's good," I said to myself.

"She'd better be," said Misato. "It'd be a shame if all that simulation time didn't translate to the real thing."

Whether in simulation or reality, the pilot knew how to fight an Angel. Hyuga sat back, scrutinizing the displays in front of him, but he said nothing. The pilot had no need of his advice or guidance. She knew the stakes, and she knew how to fight, and for the moment, Hyuga was redundant. The most he could do was sit back, watch, and hope he would be needed again, if at all.

That didn't look like it would happen soon, though. The Eva grasped at the Angel, catching the outer layer of the Angel's AT field. The pilot pushed the Eva's fingertips through the barrier, like pencils punching holes in a piece of paper, and she clawed to catch the spinning ring.

"Careful," said Hyuga. "It might have something up its sleeve this time."

But the pilot pulled the Angel in for a punch anyway, and this time, the Angel shot itself at her like a shell out of a canon.

Crack! The Angel's outer ring smashed the Eva's right forearm.

"Fracture detected!" cried one of the controllers. "Right radius, transverse open fracture."

"Right forearm armor plating displaced."

Misato rose. "How is she doing?"

Hyuga got up as well, and the two of them studied the forward projector screens together. "Fourteen, Control," said Hyuga. "Your right arm is broken. How does it feel?"

"It's not—too bad," the pilot offered through gritted teeth. "Maybe a little smashing into an easel."

"Let's take her plug depth down; ease her off the pain," said Misato.

"Let's lower the synch rate to 35%," said Maya, overseeing a group of technicians on the right side of the room. "We can then ease her back up to her normal levels over the next few minutes."

"And raise it back?" Misato shook her head. "That's not standard procedure."

"But it would help." Asuka rose from her position a few rows down. "Fighting at a low sync rate is like walking through mud. She's going to notice it, and she's not going to be as effective while that's in place, but we can reintroduce full synch and she'll hardly notice the pain. She'll be too busy to notice."

Misato frowned, so Asuka added,

"It's what I wish you guys had done when I was a pilot."

Holding on to her headset cord, Misato only looked to Maya and made her wishes known with a slight nod. "Go ahead, and let's get her on VOX. If she's straining too hard, we're aborting."

Hyuga hit the switch on his headset line. "Fourteen, we're going to have you on VOX."

The Eva chased after the Angel, making a one-handed swipe, but the Angel propelled itself free and zoomed down the road, making for the retreating artillery pieces. The Eva ran after the Angel, and the pilot grunted with each step.

"Oh, so that means I can't gripe about you guys when you're not on the line?"

"I'm afraid not," said Hyuga, who paced next to his station as he watched. "You feel all right with that arm? Well enough to continue?"

The Eva opened and closed its fist gingerly. "I guess it'll have to do," said the pilot.

Hyuga smiled. "Time for round two, then. See if you can chase it down and hold on to the AT field with both hands. I know your arm is weak, but you might be able to kick through the AT field and get some damage on that ring. All right?"

"It'll be a lot harder to get after that thing on a broken leg if this doesn't work," said the pilot.

Hyuga looked back to Misato, who only nodded. "That's a risk we'll have to take," he said.

So the Eva gave chase again, but this time, its strides weren't quite as graceful. The Eva's feet sank into the pavement in places, and it stumbled over cracks in the road. It carried on like a bull, charging toward its target with reckless abandon.

It grabbed the Angel's AT field again, but the Angel whirled and spun. Dragging space itself around it, the Angel ripped up the highway, bombarding the Eva with strips of asphalt.

"I don't think I'm holding on to this thing!" cried the pilot.

"You can," said Hyuga. "You don't need to penetrate it with your hands; just don't let it go. Kick through it."

With only one hand to hold on, the Eva raised its right leg and kicked upward, but the leg just bounced off the Angel's AT field.

And worse than that, both the Eva's legs rose from the ground as debris around the Eva rocketed upwards.

"Fourteen, let go!" Hyuga rose from his seat. "Let go, let go!"

The Angel shot for the sky with unreal speed, and though the Eva broke free, the warp of space dragged it into the clouds with the Angel. The Eva tumbled. The pilot grunted and groaned. And when the Angel spat the Eva out like a flavorless wad of gum, the Eva splatted on the side of the road, lying flat on its face.

Warning lights flashed. Alarms rang out. The controllers bombarded the master audio loop with reports.

"Multiple ribcage fractures. Upper body strength strongly compromised."

"Three armor plates displaced."

"LCL temperature up to 30C."

Misato rose from her chair. "All right, all right," she said, leaning over the table as she addressed the room. "Let's settle down, everyone. Liaison, relay to the regulars that Eva-14 is partially damaged and may not continue operations today. Systems, what can we do in the next minute or two to repair those displaced plates?"

Misato's staff worked feverishly to come up with solutions, but amid all this commotion, the pilot's labored, pained breaths came over the radio. The Eva stood up, staggering to its feet, and it set its sights on the Angel.

"Fourteen, Control. Stand by while we assess the damage."

"Damage?" the pilot said, despite her haggard breaths. "I feel fine."

"That's adrenaline. You won't feel fine in a while, and the last thing we need is for you to black out from the pain mid-battle. Stand by."

But the Eva took a tentative step, and then another. It trotted along the side of the road, building up to a sprint. In the distance, its target floated over the highway, bending the light of the setting sun into a warped ring, but the Eva gave chase.

"Fourteen! Do you read me?"

One of the controllers a few rows down looked back to Misato. "We still have her telemetry. Comms should be functional."

Misato huffed. "This isn't about the comms not working. Plugcom, give her to me, please."

Hyuga tapped one of the controls on his monitor and slid back from his station. Misato tightened her radio headset and flipped the switch to transmit.

"Fourteen, this is the General. You are ordered to stand down until further notice. Do you understand me?"

"Why? Is it that bad?"

Misato and Hyuga exchanged a glance like they'd just seen a unicorn fly through the room. "That's what we're trying to figure out!" cried Misato.

But did we have the time for that? Not really. On the far right main screen, the Angel ripped one of the artillery pieces off the highway and flung it aside like a toddler throwing away a toy. We all saw it. So did the pilot, who said,

"You guys figure it out. I feel fine."

Misato narrowed her eyes. "You operate only with this installation's consent. If you take that Eva on an unauthorized action, we will shut you down. Am I clear?"

"Do whatever you have to do."

"So be it," Misato said to herself. "All right, people, listen up! I want the tow on station in ten minutes. Commence emergency shutdown procedures and hold at S2 shutdown. Let's go!"

And so, in a flash, the pilot and her commanders lost faith in one another. The room went abuzz with controllers going over their shutdown checklists. Some of them, having little else to do, sat away from their stations. Asuka was one of those. She met my eyes from a distance and shook her head, baffled. I could only shrug.

The remaining controllers watched the battle unfold, as the pilot confronted the Angel without support. She bashed and swatted at the Angel's AT field, letting out grueling shouts and cries each time her fists failed to break through.

I turned aside, to Hyuga, and said, "She's not going to do anything that way."

Hyuga covered his microphone. "She needs to do what we were doing to begin with: hold on to it and try to break it, one AT field layer at a time."

I scoffed in frustration. "Shouldn't we tell her that, then?"

Behind me, Misato put down her headset. "You think she's going to listen?"

I spun in my chair, facing her. "I think we should try, yeah."

"Why?" Misato folded her arms. "What makes you think you can reach her now, where all other efforts have failed?"

I glanced at the middle front screen, where the Eva and Angel did battle. I closed my eyes, listening to each blow. I felt those punches as though they came from my own hands.

"Because I've been there," I said. "I know what it's like to sit in that chair."

Misato came around her table to my station. "Are you prepared to tell her that?" Misato's eyes were steady and sure; they locked me in place, and I could only look away.

"I…I guess so?" I said, retreating back in my chair.

"Show me, then." Misato clicked the _Plugcom_ button on the transmission panel, and when the system complained, she entered her password to override it. She held up the transmission switch on my headset cord. "Ready?"

I nodded weakly, and Misato threw the switch. There was a slight hiss, and all I could get out was, "Um, hello? Pilot—Pilot, can you hear me? This is, uh, this is…"

Laughter. She was laughing at me. "I know who you are." The Eva backed off, watching the Angel but otherwise unmoving. "How long have you been there?"

"The whole time," I said.

"Really? You got some advice for me there? Here to tell me to shut up and listen or something?"

"No, I, uh—" I gulped, and I took a breath. "I just wanted to say, you're a lot braver than I was."

"You're kidding," said the pilot.

"I'm not." I scooted forward in my chair, and I leaned on the desk as I spoke to her. "I never had the courage to fight through pain. I just got too tired to take it anymore."

A brief silence. "I'm not being brave either," said the pilot. "It hurts, yeah, but so what? You guys asked me to do this job. I'm trying to do it."

"You don't have to try so hard. Really. You don't have to put it all on your shoulders." I ran my fingers through my hair, and I watched the camera views of the Eva on the front projectors—as if I could catch the pilot's eye by looking at it. "I know that trying to protect so many people is hard. I've been there. I know. Let the people here do their jobs and help you. Please."

The Eva kept its guard up, but as the Angel drifted off to chase the artillery pieces again, the Eva held fast.

"I still feel fine," said the pilot, "but what do you have for me?"

Misato sighed, and she got Hyuga's attention. "Get her on track, and we can salvage this thing."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, adjusting his headset. "All right, Fourteen. We have some procedures for you. We need you to snap your right wrist armor plates back into place. Can you do that?"

The Eva pushed the armor plates flat, and the pilot let out a noticeable hiss each time. "Okay," she answered. "Now what?"

"We're going to throttle up your sync rate to give you full functionality with that arm—as much as we can given the break. Ready?"

"Yeah, go for it."

Hyuga nodded to Asuka, and the pilot grunted.

"Okay, maybe not quite as fine!" She wiggled the Eva's fingers. "But that's a lot more responsive, sure. What do you want me to do, Control?"

"Hold that AT field with both hands and break through with whatever you have," said Hyuga, pumping his fist toward the floor.

The Eva charged down the road. As the Angel gobbled up another artillery piece and flung it around to crash, the Eva caught up and latched on to the Angel's AT field. The Eva dug its fingers into the orange barrier. The Angel lurched and threw itself against the Eva, but the pilot spun the Angel around like a matador turning away a bull.

And with a mighty yell, the Eva ripped the AT field open! It charged head-first into the exposed space!

Ka-WHONG!

The Angel's outer ring broke on the Eva's AT field; the ring shattered, showering the expressway and countryside in chunks of alien, blue-white material. The Angel flew back in a wandering, irregular path. It headed for the sky, where the Eva could not reach, and it retreated behind the clouds.

Though the technicians in the control room clapped and sat back in relief, Misato kept them all on point: "Don't celebrate yet, people. Let's keep eyes on that Angel. But Fourteen, nice work." Misato covered her microphone. "And nice work from our assistant Plugcom, as well, hm?"

It's nice to be able to celebrate a win, no matter how mild or temporary that victory may be. For the moment, the Angel fled, and since it was far out of reach of the Eva's grasp, Misato ultimately recalled Eva-14 to base. The controllers closed out their consoles.

And I? I went to visit with the pilot. That was Misato's idea, too, really. "You're going to be working together a lot, I think. Make sure some of your experience rubs off on her."

We waited outside the cage elevator—Asuka and I, that is. Asuka had a full clipboard of information from Ritsuko about working on an Eva, manning one of the technical stations, and so on.

I took one look at that stack of papers, and I offered Asuka a sympathetic smile. "You have a lot on your plate."

"Hm?" She looked up absently. "Oh, I guess I do. I can't really think about it right now, though."

I put an arm around her shoulder. "Why's that?"

Asuka looked away and sighed. "Because of the pilot, you know."

"What about her?" I asked, frowning.

Clang. The cage elevator reached our floor, and out walked the pilot. Her plugsuit was mostly white, with just a few hints of green and black around her shoulders and feet. Her hair was dark and kept in a ponytail, which extended just to her shoulders. She was somewhat short but lithe in step.

Her gray eyes flickered to Asuka. "They have you here, too?"

Asuka nodded. "Yeah. You okay?"

The pilot shrugged, and her eyes went to me. "Guess we should shake hands or something? What you said out there helped, I think. Thanks."

She offered a hand, and I took it, though my eyes went back and forth between her and Asuka.

"What am I missing here?" I said.

Asuka rubbed her temple, looking away. "Shinji, this is—"

"Nozomi." A girl in a red tie and brown vest turned the corner. Her uniform was foreign to me, but her short pigtails and freckles were unmistakable.

Her name was Hikari Horaki.

"How was it?" asked Horaki, still standing at the corner of the hallway. "Everything went well?"

"Yeah, fine," said the pilot, Nozomi, who shrugged again. "It's all fine."

Asuka let out an irritated sigh, saying,

"Shinji, this is Nozomi Horaki, Hikari's little sister."

#

As a pilot, I didn't have to deal with family constantly worried about my wellbeing. I had family near me, but worrying about me was the last thing my father would've done. Though Misato tried to fill that gap in my life, I don't think I truly appreciated that at the time.

And there's still some difference, I think, between people you have to get to know and those you've known all your life. They worry about you and look after you somewhat differently. There are things only families know—that only people who live with you for years and years could ever know.

Asuka had the same experience. We were both kept away from the people we'd grown up with. And Ayanami? She didn't have any real family at all.

So I think you can imagine my discomfort, then, as I sat in a conference room with the Horaki sisters.

The head of the family was the eldest sister, Kodama Horaki. She sat at one end of the table, and with a notepad in hand, she followed everything Misato said. Kodama was a reporter, and she certainly looked the part. She was dressed precisely, in professional attire, and not a hair was out of place on her head.

Kodama grilled Misato about the nature of Nozomi's involvement in piloting. Up to this point, Nozomi had been involved only in "simulations."

"General," Kodama began, "under what authority did you recruit my sister for simulations that _actually_ had to do with Eva piloting, and not virtual reality research?"

Misato fielded the question with composure, not even missing a beat. "The prime minister's authority," she said, sitting at the other end of the table with folders and notepads laid out in front of her. "If you like, you can ask him yourself. Shall I tell him you're having doubts about your sister's role in saving all of mankind?"

"Now, General, that's not what I said. I'm happy to see Nozomi take up this duty, but nevertheless…" Kodama glared over the rims of her glasses. "…you've deceived us, General."

Misato shrugged that cold stare off with a slight laugh, and though she continued to try to assuage Kodama's concerns, the eldest sister wasn't totally buying it. Finally, after several minutes of them going back and forth, Misato had to concede some defeat.

"Look," she said at last, "I'm afraid such secrecy was necessary. The last thing we wanted was word of the project leaking out. It's our best frontline weapon."

At that, the middle sister—Hikari Horaki—spoke up, watching Misato with a sidelong glance. "And that's where you plan for Nozomi to be—at the front lines."

Misato nodded. "There's no other place an Eva can be. Someone has to take the lead."

That didn't sit well with Hikari Horaki; the disquiet was all over her face. To tell the truth, it surprised me a little. The Horaki I'd known back in Tokyo-2 had been quite commanding. That had been fitting of her role as class president. I'd come to know Horaki a bit more on a personal level since then—usually, it would be four or five of us, with Asuka, Toji, and Kensuke rounding out the gang—and I'd seen that she wasn't so domineering in her personal life. At least, she wasn't so domineering when Toji was well-behaved.

But professionally? She was still a taskmaster. I'll never forget the party she'd planned for Aunt Kyoko's birthday the year before. Horaki put us through hell to make sure it was perfect.

That's why I was a bit surprised to see Horaki so pensive and measured at the meeting. She thought about what Misato had said before asking,

"There are no other candidates? Didn't you have clones or something?"

"The dummy plugs have…problems." Misato glanced at me, then back at Horaki. "You could ask around about that," she said. "I think it best not to get into it."

"I see." Horaki's jaw clenched, and her eyes flickered past all of us to the back wall. "Even so…" She looked across the table.

At Asuka.

"Is this something a person can handle, all by herself?" asked Horaki. "I've seen what this can do to pilots."

Asuka winced, and she waved her hands around, trying to put Horaki at ease. "This is different, really! Those old guys wanted us broken at the end. Misato isn't like that."

"Still," said Horaki, her gaze growing more composed and sharper by the second, "you're asking Nozomi to fight things that don't belong in this world. How can you be sure this will turn out any different from before?" Horaki glanced aside. "Nozomi, do you want to say something about this?"

Three seats away from anyone else at the table sat Nozomi. She had her knees up, cradling a large pad of unruled paper. She scribbled away at the pages without even looking up, saying,

"I dunno, do I?"

Everyone at the table stared.

With a slight laugh, Misato tried to regain control of the meeting. "At any rate, let me be clear about one thing." She leaned forward, folding her hands, and caught both Horaki and Kodama's eyes. "I understand perfectly the level of sacrifice and hardship we're asking of your family, and of Nozomi. I would not ask it if I did not think Nozomi could handle it, nor if I thought it unnecessary to help protect what little we've managed to rebuild. It's my hope we can make this as painless as possible for the days and weeks to come."

" 'Weeks'?" Horaki raised an eyebrow. "You think it'll take weeks to defeat that Angel?"

"Not that one, no." Misato clicked on a monitor behind her, and with a wireless keyboard and mouse, she brought up an image—an image of deep space, with stars in the background and a white-hot spherical blob.

There was something else out there—something in the Oort Cloud, where asteroids and comets live. And like the Angel that Nozomi had just fought, this thing was coming from outer space for us, too.

"So you see, we need a willing pilot and a family who will support her," said Misato as she flipped through various images of the object. "Nozomi is the best candidate we have. Her simulation scores top the group, and as you've seen, her feel for piloting Eva in combat is sound. All I need from you is your approval to make Nozomi the pilot on a permanent basis going forward."

Kodama frowned. With a sigh, she put her notepad and pen aside and leaned forward, looking down the table to Nozomi. "How do you _really_ feel about doing this?"

The youngest sister flipped a sheet of paper around and shrugged. "Somebody's gotta do it, right?"

Hikari Horaki gaped. "Nozomi, this isn't about other people. This is about you. Do you want to pilot that thing?"

Still, Nozomi was not looking as she answered. "Would anyone in their right mind want to pilot it?"

It was hard to argue with that.

"It'll be fine," said Nozomi, sketching away at her pad on her knees. "Don't worry about it."

#

Nozomi wasn't the only one who had a job to do. Misato set up Asuka with Maya to learn the ropes of managing an Eva's technical systems. Hyuga coordinated our efforts with the rest of SDF, supplying an update on the Angel's position and trajectory.

The Horaki family went on their way, of course, with Nozomi last to go. That left only Misato and me, and I was fairly sure she already had a job, unlike me. As she scribbled on some forms and paperwork, Misato cracked a smile.

"It's quite a thing, isn't it?" she said.

I hovered in the doorway, mouth half-open. "I'm sorry?"

"What we're doing here. Hundreds of people all bound together by a singular purpose—really makes you appreciate the magnitude of what's being done, don't you think?"

"I guess," I said with a shrug.

"Such enthusiasm!" cried Misato, shaking her head. "You came to me asking to be a part of this."

"After you asked me first," I said, narrowing my eyes.

"Even so, there's no need to be skittish now. Take the bull by the horns, like you did this morning."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

Raising an eyebrow, she put her pen down. "Do exactly what you did for Nozomi earlier: be a guide, a role model—"

"Me?" I shook my head.

Misato shrugged. "It's you or Asuka. I don't think Rei's in any position to show her the ropes."

I looked away. "Still…"

Misato collected some folders in her hands, and she smiled again. "You're not alone here. We'll all have a hand in supporting Nozomi throughout. There are only two human beings left in this world who know the kinds of horrors Nozomi will endure."

"Two?" I frowned, and I started counting out on my hands. Nozomi was the sixth, Ayanami and Kaworu weren't around. If I hadn't completely forgotten my arithmetic, six minus three makes three.

Misato laughed, ceding the point. "I think he's suffered enough, yes?"

"And I haven't?" I said.

Flushing a bit, Misato continued on. "There are only two human beings left in this world who know the kinds of horrors Nozomi will endure _long-term_. You're one of them. Believe me—no, believe in the me who believes in you."

"You're too old to be quoting something like that," I said.

Her mouth hung open, and I could feel her irritation rising like a lava flow in a volcano. "However _young_ I may be," she said, "that doesn't make me wrong, you know."

I rubbed my temple and sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

Beaming, Misato scribbled something else on a form and slid the paper across the table. "Take this to the security station in building four, and they'll give you a keycard."

"Why? For what?"

"For your office."

#

I can't say I thought I'd have my own office before graduating high school, before getting a job of my own, but that's what Misato gave me: an office with a metal desk, with two widescreen monitors casting the room in a faint blue glow.

It was a stark place, to be sure—there were no windows that far underground. But that was fine, really. The place wasn't meant to be comfortable. Aside from the main chair behind the desk, there was only one other chair. The office wasn't designed for many guests.

No, it was a place for doing work, and Misato had left me a great deal. A stack of manilla folders had taken root on the desk corner, and if I left it alone, it could easily grow to dwarf me. Aside from that, I took a look at the computer, which showed a list of hundreds of reports, graphs, plots, and studies—all about the pilot candidates, of course.

You see, Nozomi wasn't the only candidate. Far from it: Misato had rounded up almost a dozen children, all with desperate families in need of the financial support SDF could give. The names on those reports were depressingly familiar to me: Horaki, Suzuhara, and so on—all classmates of mine back in Tokyo-3. What kind of people did we have to be, to rely on the siblings of those who had already seen hell come to their doorsteps?

Desperate people, perhaps. In desperation, these children had become pilot candidates for money. Misato had involved them in regular simulations—walking, running, jumping, navigation of terrain, and the like—for the better part of a year. She knew these children better than she knew me, I expected. And more than just simulation results, Misato had compiled in-depth personality analyses and background material. She knew each child's favorite foods or which after-school clubs they attended.

All this she had done for the sake of putting the best pilot in the entry plug, and the best of them was Nozomi.

I pulled up her file, and right away, the girl's straight-ahead stare pinned me to my seat. It was just a photograph, but there was an edge to her look somehow, as though she could pierce me with just a glance. There was no arrogance or disdain in her eyes—no, it was more like the discerning gaze of a scientist or a security guard.

Or an artist. Yes, Nozomi was an artist. She belonged to the Art Club at her school, though the reports in front of me said that she hadn't made many friends there and was somewhat at odds with the club leadership. How they found that out I'll never know—did they plant agents in the school just to watch her?

Equally as strained was Nozomi's relationship with her family. Her eldest sister was an overworked journalist. The middle sister was in charge of the house. By all accounts, Nozomi shared few interests with the two of them.

And yet there she was—not just an Eva pilot, but a willing one. She hadn't yet hesitated. When more than a few people had gone back to the sea willingly, Nozomi not only stayed in this world but worked to defend it. It wasn't like her sisters' love rode on it—they didn't want her to pilot in the first place. But she wanted to be a pilot anyway.

To be honest, I began to feel Misato was mistaken. I couldn't be of much help to someone like Nozomi. She already had everything important figured out. She didn't need people to inspire her to fight. Maybe she'd benefit from a little advice on how best to pilot an Eva, but if that were all, I wouldn't end up with much to do.

And maybe that was for the best. I could sit back and let Hyuga and Misato do most of the work. If I made a small but positive contribution to the effort, no one would think any less of me. They weren't expecting me to change the face of this battle. Misato had been prepared to go on without me, after all. That I'd become involved at all—it was a courtesy.

I wasn't really needed at all.

And everything about that office was just decoration meant to hide the fact. When you give a person shiny monitors and 3d glasses, you're just giving them distractions. What matters are the words on a page, not what jazzes up their delivery. Tricks like those don't mean anything.

And the person who uses those gadgets and toys? He's insignificant, too, so long as he relies on them to do work in his place.

Or as long as he relies on other people to tell him about the girl he's supposed to guide.

#

Things weren't really back to normal in Tokyo-2 until a few days later. SDF crews roamed the streets, with combat engineers vacuuming up puddles of LCL or filling them in with sand. But cars rolled by, their drivers oblivious to the work being done, and the trains were back on schedule. There was no more sign of the Angel in Japan, and if you looked to the sky, you wouldn't have seen anything unusual. Clouds raced past without incident, and the gaps between them were as blue as ever.

I know because I did a lot of looking at the sky. Most middle schools don't have a place for visitors to be entertained.

When it was safe enough, and when the schools were open again, I took an afternoon to myself and headed to the town of Toyoshina. If you're not familiar with the area, Toyoshina was about ten kilometers north of downtown Tokyo-2. Back before Third Impact, Toyoshina had been a bustling community, all the more when refugees from Tokyo-3 came to the capital, looking for a place to stay.

That's why, as incongruous as it seemed, the Horaki family had come to settle down amid farmland.

The outskirts of Toyoshina had been part of the rice bowl of Nagano Prefecture, at least before Third Impact anyway. The middle of town was no different from Tokyo-2, really, but there was a clear dividing line between civilization and the sticks. That line was a mostly east-west road that set off Toyoshina proper from North Toyoshina—where the rice paddies began.

Or, I should say, where they used to begin. In the days since Third Impact, the paddies had become overrun with weeds—that was if they let anything grow at all. Without regular irrigation, many of the paddies had dried up, leaving only parched, cracking soil behind.

It was in front of one barren rice paddy that I waited, across the road from North Toyoshina Middle School. The road going by the school was cracked and uneven. The hedges in front were a sickly brown and unkempt. The white walls of the main building had yellow stains running from the roof, and the windows showed spots from a rainstorm.

I'd taken care to be early—enough not to miss anyone. Students trickled out of the school building as their clubs finished business, but they were few and far between. No more than two or three at a time left through the main gate, and they trudged from the building in slow motion—as though their bags were heavy, too full of books. Then again, even the ones with little to carry were lethargic, wading up the street as though the air were full of syrup.

Their eyes were dull and unresponsive, too. One of the students looked right at me and said,

"Aren't you a little old to have a girlfriend here?"

That was one of the few times I was sad to be unrecognized.

It was that way for about an hour and a half—I didn't see a single familiar face. By that point, I'd worn out the grass on the side of the road, and I'd had enough of that, so I headed away.

I trekked down road toward the train station, running across the only car I'd seen all afternoon: a white van with darkened windows.

I approached the van, tapping my knuckle on the window, and the driver rolled the window down. He was dressed inconspicuously, with a black buttoned shirt and black pants.

"Is something wrong?" he said.

"No, no. I was just wondering—do your people know where she is?"

The driver knocked on the divider that separated the front and rear compartments. "Open up the back," he called out. "He's taking a ride with us."

Unlike the driver, the personnel in the rear of the van openly wore green GSDF uniforms. They toiled over laptops with headsets, monitoring camera footage from the van and elsewhere. They were polite, offering me a seat while we were underway, but they didn't say much. They had jobs to do, after all. They couldn't afford to spend hours of their lives doing nothing.

The security detail drove me about a kilometer west, to a bridge over a small stream. There were other bridges in the area—for other roads, and a separate bridge for the nearby train line.

It was under the train tracks, about a hundred meters downstream, that Nozomi Horaki sat. The van stopped at the side of the road, and I headed down the sloped channel on my own. I liked to think Nozomi wouldn't notice me, but without even looking up, she said,

"You know, people are gonna get the wrong idea about you if you corner a girl under a bridge."

"That—that's not what I'm doing!" I said, putting my hands up.

"It's not?" She put her pencil down and shot me a knowing look. "You come all the way from Tokyo-2. You get your SDF friends to spy on me so you can figure out where I've gone. Isn't that what's happening here?"

I glanced up, out of the V-shaped channel. Another white van sat on the side of the road.

"No, because SDF was already watching you. I only asked them where you went."

At that, Nozomi huffed, shaking her head. "That's not a defense."

"I need a defense now?"

She shrugged. "I dunno, do you?"

I sat in the shadow of the railroad bridge, and Nozomi paid me no mind. She sat with her knees up, resting a pad on them as she sketched. The scene was the view downstream. We sat just low enough in the channel that most of the surrounding area was out of sight. Only the overgrown channel and stream were clear in the sketch. Everything beyond—farmhouses, and the like—disappeared from view. Only a few stray power lines hinted at what lay beyond.

I peered at the sketch once more and said, "So you like realistic art?"

"Sometimes," she said, focusing her attention on a flowery weed at the water's edge. "You can't be too realistic—you can't capture everything with pencil strokes, but you can get most of a scene. You can capture the essence of it well enough."

"What essence is that?" I asked.

She shot me a curious look. "Are you asking an artist what her work means?"

"Ah, uh…" I pulled at my collar and gulped. "It, uh—it seems like the thing to do, if you can't make sense of it otherwise." I nodded to myself. "Maybe I'm just really untrained in what it means to appreciate art, but if you asked me to look at that sketch right now, I'd say it's a pretty faithful recreation of the real world. That's all I could tell you."

She laid her pencil flat on the pad, holding it place with her thumb, and she looked at me. "You've never been into art, huh? Not even just a little?"

"Not visual arts, no. I did music when I was younger—cello, mostly. I can't say I had a feel for what music should feel like, just the technical aspects. I knew how to _play_ , but not how to _perform_ , I guess?" I laughed, scratching the back of my head. "So I'd appreciate it, if you could help me understand even a little."

She eyed me sidelong. "I can tell you about art, but only if you tell me something in return."

I winced.

"Relax," she said, scooting closer to me. She tucked her pencil into the spiral binding of her pad, and she flipped back a few pages. "What do you see?"

A bed of flowers, lining the side of a gravel path. Some bungie cord held a bicycle to a nearby tree. It was a picturesque scene, with dozens of six-petaled flowers in bloom. Pencil strokes captured even the central stripe on each petal, giving them definition and detail.

"A beautiful scene," I said.

"Right? You wouldn't want to miss out on that, right? If you knew it existed, you'd want to see it, wouldn't you?"

"Of course."

Nozomi rose, and she tucked her sketchpad under her arm. "Then let's go see it."

The site wasn't far—it was just beyond the road bridge, where my security detail had parked to watch us. We climbed out of the channel and set food on the gravel bike path. Things had changed since Nozomi had sketched the area, though: the bike was gone, leaving only a few stray nylon fibers on a tree. And something I hadn't made out on first glance caught me by surprise: a rectangular, stone monument. It sat about a meter high, with two iron plaques side by side.

The monument was easy to see, for the blooming flowers had all shed their petals, giving way to parched greenery instead.

Nozomi held up one shriveled, discarded petal. "They're daylilies," she explained. "During blooming season, they shed their petals each day and make new flowers. These were blooming earlier in the week, the day after those things came. I only caught them just as I was on the way home from…" She looked aside. "Well, you know. That was the last bloom of the year."

She laid the withered petal on the ground, and she glanced over the horizon.

"Most people around here probably didn't get to see it," she said.

I leaned around her, looking at her sketchpad. "But you captured them."

She shrugged, and she shook her head. "That's just for now. But in the end, paper rots. Pencil lines get smudged." She held up the pad. "This sketch? It's every bit as temporary as the daylilies themselves. It just takes a little longer for people to see that."

Well, the same could be said of anything in that scene. The stone monument must erode, in time. The gravel pathway could get washed out in a flood. And in the future, the sun will get hotter and hotter. It will burn off all the carbon dioxide plants need to survive, suffocating them and killing off all the animals in turn—those who eat plants to survive, those who eat those animals, and so on. Eventually, the Earth will turn to molten slag, and even further down the line, the sun will expand and swallow the Earth whole.

Such was the grim fate depicted in art of Nozomi Horaki, all conveyed in a simple sketch of daylilies.

"Nozomi," I said, "did you ever meet Toji?"

"Hikari's boyfriend?" She flipped through some sketches, showing me a drawing of Horaki and Toji walking side by side down a lonely suburban road. "He's a little easier to get along with since he got his leg back. He was kind of sour about it before. Hikari took it worse, though. Seemed like the two of them were just starting to get along when he was picked. You know what all that's about."

I nodded, pursing my lips, and looked away.

"Anyway…" Nozomi circled in front of me like a lion before a gazelle. "I think it's my turn now?"

I shuddered, bowing my head for Nozomi's mercy.

"Do you know Koizumi?" she asked.

I blinked. "Who?"

"He's an idol. Or he was, back before the last impact. Pretty tall? Brown hair? Likes glitter?"

I didn't know a lot of people like that then, and I don't know a lot of people like that now.

"It's not that strange for an idol, really! When I was ten, I was really into it. Too into it, really. I thought there'd be nothing more amazing than fucking that guy in a shower of glitter." She rolled her eyes and laughed. "Pretty ridiculous, right?"

My eyes bulged out of their sockets. "How old are you now?"

"Isn't that in my file?"

I winced, burying my face in my hands, and thankfully, Nozomi moved on.

"I still crushed on that guy pretty hard up until three years ago. He was a star, you know? Always looked perfect. Had a great singing voice and a real sense of aesthetics. Or maybe his staff did, and he was just out there doing what he had to do. I don't know, really.

"But about a year before the last impact, he retired from the idol scene. Said he wanted to make real music—whatever that is." She shook her head at that.

"That sounds admirable, though," I said. "Or ambitious, maybe."

"But is it really?" Nozomi squinted at the horizon. "I know what he meant; I'm just saying that all music is music. It's all just different, you know? But he retired. He shut himself in a cabin in Hokkaido and stayed there for about six months. Why do you think he did that?"

I rubbed a finger against my temple. I stared out over the landscape, but the only answers there were about drought conditions and weed management. "He didn't like the music he was making anymore?" I offered.

Nozomi bowed her head, and she shuffled her feet on the gravel road. "Maybe. But I always thought he just didn't like the lifestyle. He seemed into the music, at least to me. But going around, meeting fans, constantly being talked about—it didn't seem like his thing, you know?" She looked at me again. "So I feel like maybe that's it. Maybe he just needed to get away from the fame. What do you think?"

I scratched the back of my arm. "I don't know, really. I can't relate to that."

"How's that?"

"I never asked to be famous," I said.

Nozomi cocked her head, scrutinizing me. "Is that why you've been such a shut-in the last two years?"

I shrugged. "It's a reason."

Frowning, Nozomi adjusted the sketchpad that was tucked between her arm. "Well," she said, "I'm glad you're not doing that anymore. You don't need to pull a Koizumi and lock yourself away to find something more real, you know?"

"I'm just helping out for a little while." I opened and closed a fist at my side. The sun was hot. I wiped sweat from my neck. "Just until we're done with the Angels and all that. And then you'll be a student again, too. Or an artist, maybe, if you want to be."

Nozomi stepped up to me, staring like a statue of granite. Though she was a full head shorter than me, her gaze was no less intimidating.

"I'm still both of those," she said, "but I'm also trying to be something else now. You have to do shit like that sometimes."

She jerked her head toward the withered daylilies.

"There's no place in this world for things to just stay the same—not for flowers…"

She pressed an index finger to my breastbone.

"And not for people, either."

With that, she stepped past me, and she headed back the way we came along the gravel road.

"Nozomi!" I cried.

She pivoted on one foot, facing me wordlessly.

"I'm here now," I said. "As long as you have to pilot that thing, I'm here for you." I clenched my hand into a fist at my side. "That's something I'm trying to do now."

"You mean that?" she called back. "You promise?"

"I do."

"That's good." She looked up and smiled. "Thanks, Ikari."

She turned around to head home again, and I followed her from a short distance, saying nothing more.

It wasn't the magic connection I'd been hoping for, but I did come away from that conversation understanding a little more about Nozomi Horaki. Perhaps in the time we would spend together, we could learn to appreciate some things about each other, just as we both appreciated her sketch of the daylilies.

Still, there was much distance to cover between us. I could only hope we'd bridge that gap before the paper of that daylily sketch rotted, or before our partnership was dissolved.

In the end, people are spiny things, and getting to know another person is like digging your spines into them and vice versa. It hurts a little. You can't do it all at once.

But if you tell them you're willing to hurt a little, that helps. It helps a lot.

Or at least, I like to think so.

#

The next day, Nozomi was called upon to fulfill a pilot's duty once again.

The Angel had headed west over continental Asia, making a beeline for Germany. The Germans had an Eva of their own, but Misato had pushed to send Unit-14 over there, too. In her words,

"Why fight an Angel with one Eva if you can bring two?"

That meant Nozomi would have to fly—and fly for a while.

Manoah Base had its own airfield, where technicians hooked up the Eva to cranes and loaded it on the back of a modified cargo plane. There was just one runway. As long as it was, it seemed too small for the plane with the Eva awkwardly perched on top of it, but the pilots were already in the cockpit, running through takeoff checklists or talking to the tower, I'm sure. They certainly believed it could happen.

There were five of us at the side of the runway that day: the Horaki family—Nozomi, Hikari, and Kodama—along with Misato and me to see Nozomi off. Nozomi, for her part, marveled at the tremendous effort to attach the Eva to the cargo plane. "Is that thing really gonna fly?" she asked. "For real?"

"For real," said Misato, grinning. "Eva goes where it's needed, and right now, that Angel is heading west. Are you prepared for that?"

The pilot couldn't resist making a quick sketch of the scene. "It's what I'm here for."

Misato cocked her head slightly, staring back at Nozomi from under the bill of her officer's cap. "Is it now?" She sighed, shaking her head, before shaking herself free of any doubts or malaise. Her next words were much more enthusiastic: "Well! I don't want to draw this out. I'll give you all some time alone, hm? But don't take too long. We do need to get moving soon. Okay?" With a nod and a smile, Misato moved off, turning to a handheld radio to check on the operation's progress.

That left just the four of us—the Horaki family and me.

Naturally, most of the attention was focused on Nozomi. Her eldest sister, Kodama, approached her first, bearing an open backpack.

"These are for the trip," she said, and she pulled out some of the contents: an extra sketchpad, a box of pencils, and so on. "Sorry if they're not up to snuff. They're the best I could get on the way here from work."

Nozomi took the second sketchpad in hand, and she flipped to the first page. She rubbed her fingers over the paper and frowned.

"It's a little fine." Her frown softened. "But in a pinch it could be worse, right?"

Kodama nodded, and she stepped back, making way for the middle sister, Hikari. She carried herself steadily, and with both hands, she presented a pair of black lunchboxes.

"It's crucial to eat well when doing important work," said Horaki. "Hopefully these keep you in good spirits."

Nozomi took the two boxes and raised them overhead, as if to see whether sunlight would pass through them. "I dunno. Could make a mess on the plane."

"You want to give them back? It's tempura."

Nozomi tucked the two boxes under her arm, turning them away from Horaki.

"Thought so," said Horaki, smiling. "Take care, Nozomi."

"Thanks," said Nozomi, who nodded once to each of her sisters. "You, too." She started for the runway.

"Oh, Nozomi, one more thing." Horaki took a step after her, but when Nozomi turned to meet her gaze, Horaki stiffened.

"Yeah?" said Nozomi.

Horaki cleared her throat. "I asked the general if you'd have some way to call home. She said she could have her people connect their radios to a phone line. You can talk to Sister that way, if you like."

Nozomi looked up to her sister, but her expression and gaze were as telling as a piece of stone.

"Yeah," she said. "That'll be useful, I guess—especially since I dunno how long I'll be gone." Her eyes flickered to the elder sister. "Maybe after dinner each night? Or I dunno. I dunno what time it'll be over there."

"We'll figure something out," said Kodama, moving one step closer to Horaki. "We'll talk about it—the three of us."

Nozomi stared—first at Kodama, then at Horaki.

"Yeah," Nozomi said flatly.

Horaki let out a little breath at that, and Kodama put a hand on her shoulder.

"Be safe, Nozomi," said Kodama.

Nozomi nodded, and she looked to me again. "I guess we'll talk some more later, huh?"

"Probably, yeah," I said, waving. "Good luck, Nozomi."

She shot me an annoyed look. "I'm not looking for luck. Just be there like you said you would, and it'll all be fine, right? Whatever happens after that—well, as long as we've done all we could, it's fine. Yeah?"

"Yeah."

From ten or fifteen meters down the runway, Misato called out to us. "Nozomi! Are you ready?"

"Yeah!" Nozomi called over her shoulder, but she shot me a knowing look again before departing. "I'm holding you to that, Ikari. Don't forget."

I nodded, and Nozomi gathered her things—the bag of art supplies and the lunchboxes. She trotted off to join Misato and get suited up for the mission ahead. In turn, one of Misato's agents asked us to step back from the runway; at best, we could watch takeoff from a safe distance.

As we made our way to safety, Horaki walked up alongside me. "So, Ikari," she said, "you're going to be looking out for Nozomi?"

My breath caught. Her stare bored into me, and I sputtered, "I'm going to try my best. I know I'm new at all this, but…" I balled my hand into a fist at my side. "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure she comes back safe, and sane."

She looked at me from the side. "You told her this?"

"I did."

"I see." Her eyes flickered straight ahead. "Be careful what promises you make to Nozomi."

"Why do you say that?"

She turned her head away from me, back toward the runway, and said,

"You need to be sure you can keep them."

I tried to keep those words in mind, even as the cargo plane's propellers threatened to drown them out.

#

While Nozomi was on her way to battle, it was time to settle some business at home. Misato had a whole bunker for the Eva—with labs for research and living quarters for all personnel to help them work efficiently.

Or to make sure they had no excuse to leave. Heh.

It was convenient, though, to have somewhere to sleep if we worked long days at the base, and since Asuka and I both had jobs there, that convenience was something Misato could offer us.

Unfortunately, convenience was the only thing she could offer. When Asuka and I first saw these quarters, the first thing out of Asuka's mouth was,

"What the hell is this?"

I didn't want to be picky. There was a bed for two, a dresser, a sink, and a private toilet and shower, too. That was a relief, really. Some of the junior non-officer personnel were packed in eight to a room or more, with no private toilet or bath at all.

But it was pretty bare-bones. The flooring was dark carpet, thankfully, but obviously we were so far down there could be no windows or external light. The sink was a purely metal fixture—all very functional and efficient, and that was all it was.

"We're going to go crazy if we stay here," said Asuka, walking in the narrow space between the bed and the hallway wall. "This is little more than a cage. And look!" She went up to the desk, which sat beside the dresser. "One desk for two people. Who thought of that?"

I put a bag down on the bed and started going through the contents: some toiletries, a few pairs of underwear and socks, and some outfits—enough to get through a couple days. "It's really not so bad," I said. "I'll be in my office most of the time, so I doubt I'd be using that desk very much."

Asuka snapped her fingers, looking aside. "That's what I need. Not just my own tiny cubicle. A personal office."

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself?"

"Says the guy who has his own personal office already." She put her hands on her hips, frowning. "What did you say to get Misato to give you those nice digs, anyway?"

I piled two pairs of underwear on top of another. "I just said I would help Nozomi."

"That right." Asuka smirked. "Look at you—so devoted to work all of a sudden. Next thing you know, you'll be taking your work home with you."

I clutched a pair of socks in hand, freezing. "Why do you think I'd do that?"

"Oh, never mind," she said, shrugging, and her eyes went to the back of the room. "Man, I hope that shower isn't gross."

She slid past me to peer into the bathroom and toilet, and while her back was to me, I took a file folder from my bag and slipped it under a stack of base manuals and regulations on the desk. I checked back—no, she wasn't looking—and I said,

"How is it?"

She made a horrified grunt. "I think we should only stay here in emergencies. Let's go back home for the day, come back for the battle."

I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "I don't know," I said. "I wouldn't want to be late."

"You worried about her?" she called out the washroom door.

Shrugging, I laid the underwear, socks, and shirts into the top dresser drawer. "What do you know about her and Horaki?"

Asuka came back out and plopped down on the sink counter with a sigh. She kicked her feet idly. "Hmm. I didn't speak to Nozomi very much when I stayed with them. When I did run into her, she was a little distant, yeah. I mean, I don't have any brothers or sisters. I figured most girls would be a little wary of their sisters' friends—well, unless they were trying to impress older kids and look cool. Nozomi definitely isn't that."

I closed the drawer, frowning. "Yeah, I know what she's _not_ , but I don't really know what she _is_ yet, either, or why she and Horaki seem strange around each other."

"Strange? How?"

"Horaki seems pretty stiff when it comes to her."

"Aha." Asuka shrugged. "Maybe she doesn't like Hikari? That girl can be hard to get along with sometimes. She can get pushy sometimes."

"Why are you friends with her, then?"

"She's not pushy with _me_ , but that's something you just learn and get a feel for." Asuka hopped off the counter and stretched her arms. "I wouldn't worry about it. Some families, you know—they just have things going on with them that outsiders can't understand. Would anyone else have understood the distance between you and your father?"

I sat back down on the bed, staring at the wall. "That's different. My father was an exceptional man."

Asuka snorted. "An exceptional asshole, maybe."

I bowed my head, smiling. "I was going to say _bastard_ , but that works, too."

"An exceptional jackass."

"An exceptional douchebag."

Snickering, Asuka sat beside me and rubbed my head. "Look at you—all foul-mouthed all of a sudden!"

"Maybe I just have my father to thank for that."

"Yeah, well…" She put an arm around me. "You can thank your father for a lot of things, but you turned out all right in spite of him, yeah?"

Maybe I had. I was there, and I was alive. I was in a position to make a difference—a real difference, not one I would just stumble upon. And I had friends to support me, like Asuka and Misato. What my father had done to me—what he had put me through—that was in the past.

It was a sobering thought, just to realize how much of my young adult life had been shaped by what my father ultimately had in mind for me. The isolation, the separation—these helped shape me into what my father needed, into the tool that would be too weak and starved for affection to resist being used. That's what I used to be.

But sitting there with Asuka, in that drab gray box far underground, I was my own person. I could make myself into whatever I wanted.

"Hey, what's this?"

From the stack of manuals and regulations on the wooden desk, Asuka pulled out the thin file folder.

"It's nothing!" I said, stiffening up. "Really, it's just a little thing!"

"Relax," she said, tossing the folder aside. "Like I'm one to talk about taking work home. Still…" She looked from me to the folder again, deep in thought.

"What is it?"

"Nothing." She broke into a smirk. "Maybe I should punish you anyway, though."

I zipped up the bag and laid it at the foot of the bed. "What kind of punishment might that be?"

Asuka pinched my nose and grinned.

#

I now know that, when you have to be at your station at 0130, it's probably not a good idea to exert yourself the day before. When the best coffee and tea you can get your hands on taste like caffeine-infused water more than anything else, it's _definitely_ not a good idea.

So early the next morning, I tried to stay awake at my station as best I could. I read procedure manuals and technical specifications aloud—quietly, of course—just to keep myself going. Did you know that an Eva's armor plating is no less than three centimeters thick? Or that it's made of polymer-infused carbon fiber? I didn't either, until that morning. I remember thinking I'd have to ask Asuka about that.

"Shinji."

That was the man beside me, Major Hyuga. Unlike me, he looked like he was ready to deal with anything up to an including a nuclear strike. He was that steady, relaxed, and awake.

"We're coming up on the scheduled check-in," he said.

"Ah! Right!" I stiffened in my chair, sitting upright, and I worked the switch for the transmitter. "Eva-14, Eva-14, this is Manoah Base—"

"Easy, not yet," he said, amused. "Private Ikezawa is going to make sure we're routed properly. Ikezawa?"

"Yes, sir," said a woman further down the row. "We're just switching the encryption keys for the German network now."

Everything had to be done in a certain way and in a certain order, and there was a list of procedures and regulations a that could've filled the whole room if it were printed out. I didn't know about any of these things. They just asked me to talk to the pilot.

"Ops, we're connected," said the private.

"Very good." Hyuga touched the back of my chair. "You're on, Shinji."

I cleared my throat, sat back, and began again. "Eva-14, Eva-14, this is Manoah Base. Do you read me?"

The first thing I heard back on the line was laughter. "Wow, Ikari. They got you talking like you belong in SDF, huh?"

I went red in the ears. "They do not!"

"Do too."

I sat straight up in my chair. "Eva-14, do you read me? This is part of the scheduled check-in procedure. We have to go through the checklist."

"Yeah, yeah, I read you already."

"Okay, good. Now, we going to go through the Off-Base Startup - Telemetry Reconnection procedure. Can you bring that up for me?"

We didn't have entry plug video yet, but this should've consisted of Nozomi interacting with the holographic interface inside the plug and bringing up a window with a list of procedures.

"All right. Sequence 7-13?"

"That's correct."

"Okay, so we're starting with the telemetry frequency?"

The output telemetry frequency, the encryption key for the signal, the number of subchannels used for additional data transmission, backup frequencies in case of noise on the primary channel—she needed all of that, and then the same thing over again for the Eva to accept remote commands. And then all the separate sensors had to broadcast their total data history for us to have and make sense of since the Eva had been brought online.

But in the end, it was worth it, for reestablishing all the telemetry and secondary communication channels put a visual of the entry plug interior on my screen. Nozomi waved half-heatedly at the virtual camera.

"And I thought _I_ didn't get much sleep," she mused, lying back in her seat.

"How long have you been in there?" I asked.

"A couple hours now. They put us down in Russia, I guess, and it took the better part of an hour just to get the plug out and get me inside it." She shivered, holding to her elbows. "Be glad you never had to do that. Going into cold goo that way—never again."

"I guess it's a lucky thing the worst I ever had to do was sit and wait for an Angel to come." I sat back in my chair, twirling a pen between my fingers. "It's not easy, is it—having nowhere to go and nothing to pass the time with?"

She shrugged, letting her arms fall listlessly on the plug controls. "Can't exactly draw when the stuff you breathe would soak through all your sketchbooks. Can't go anywhere, do anything. Can't go to the toilet…"

I winced. "Please tell me you went to the toilet before they loaded you in."

"First thing I did when we landed." She smiled slyly. "Why? Does that mean you had an accident in one of these before?"

"Absolutely not!"

She laughed again. "You're a terrible liar, Ikari."

I sighed. "And you're in a too good of a mood."

"Am I?" She drummed her fingers on the controls. "I'm just okay, really."

" _Okay_ isn't a bad state of mind to be in right now. I'm glad for that."

She eyed the camera sidelong. "Really?"

"Really. It's good that it doesn't bother you too much. It always bothered me."

"Why's that?"

I turned about in my chair and glanced up. There was a windowed room overlooking the control center. Misato used it as a place for guests and dignitaries to observe ongoing missions and battles and the like. That day, the audience was none other than the Horaki family. Indeed, the eldest sister, Kodama, sat in the front row.

"I never had family supporting me," I said over the radio.

"Are they there?" Nozomi peered around me, as though that would help. "Are they watching?"

"Yeah. We've got a radio upstairs if you'd like to talk to them."

She frowned. "They're both there?"

The middle daughter of the Horaki family wasn't sitting with the others. No, she stood off to the side, right up against the glass. Our eyes met, and she waved politely at me. I returned the gesture, saying to Nozomi,

"Yeah, they're both here."

"That's okay, then." Nozomi turned aside, sitting straight in the seat—which meant looking away from the communication window. "I know there's not a lot of time before we get started."

I opened a file folder on my desk and looked down. "Somebody you don't want to talk to?" I asked.

"I didn't say that."

"Then what is it?"

Nozomi's eyes narrowed. "Look at you, trying to be sly." She stared out the front of the visual interface. "It's complicated," she said.. "Don't worry too much about it. I'm sure it's pretty stupid compared to what we've got to deal with."

Sighing, I moved my seat forward, shut the folder, and lowered my voice. "You need to be careful, Nozomi. Inside Eva, everything that haunts you becomes ten times worse. Problems with family, problems with friends—they're magnified inside that entry plug. That's the place where your soul and feelings are laid bare. You can't put off dealing with that stuff just to be a pilot. You can't _be_ a pilot that way."

She sighed, drumming her fingers on the controls again. "I guess that _is_ what they're paying you for, isn't it—to say uncomfortable stuff like that? The stuff I don't wanna hear that's also true?"

I smiled sympathetically. "If it's really going to be that bad, they need to pay me more."

She huffed at that, breaking into a small smile herself. "I'll try to deal with it, I guess. You're probably right about that stuff." Her eyes flickered forward, to another information screen. "But that's gotta wait. Tell me what I need to do here."

Kill an Angel and let us all go back to our lives—that would've been a good start. That's what we needed to do, but it wouldn't be easy.

The Angel had headed for Germany. Its reasons were unknown, but its destination was certain: Vetzillah Base, our German counterpart in Berlin. How the Angel knew to go there no one could say. Maybe it felt the presence of something like itself there. Maybe Seele had uncovered the knowledge and communicated it somehow. Either way, the Angel was headed for Germany, and we would have it face two Eva instead of one.

And that confrontation would have to come soon, for the Angel didn't advance on Berlin unaided. The creatures advanced from the north, pushing through a wooded area north of Berlin. The German defenders had set up artillery emplacements to slaughter the beasts, but try as they might, the Germans had a difficult time defending their guns. Just one or two of the creatures could match a half-dozen men, and what they lacked in range, they made up for in sheer resilience, shrugging off all but the most devastating, high-caliber bullet wounds with ease.

Just in the fifteen minutes before the operation began, we watched three German artillery pieces go dark, overrun by the creatures. Some of these firefights we witnessed live, but for most of the others, all we could do was track hotspots on a map overlay. It was like some cruel strategy game, with units duking it out in real time while we sat there, in our control room, helpless to do anything to change it.

And then the Angel came.

It rolled into the battlefield leisurely, as though it were on an afternoon stroll. As its rings spun around its body, their wake picked up trees and dirt from the soil, flinging material nowhere in particular. The Angel overflew an artillery emplacement, and the gun zipped off the ground as though it were made of paper.

"Isn't it about time we do something about this?" asked Nozomi.

I looked to the officer on my left. Hyuga sipped some tea, looking unmoved. "This is how the Germans want it. It's up to Eva-15 right now."

Eva Unit-15. It was a tall, lanky beast—but it was fast and agile unlike any person could be with those proportions. It dashed into view as a streak of white, red, and black. It let out a guttural, vicious cry, charged at the Angel, and lowered its shoulder for an ear-splitting blow.

CRACK!

AT fields smashed against each other, shimmering in the afternoon light. The hit repulsed the Angel, driving it away from its targets: a caravan of motorized artillery on a highway.

"Ops, are we cleared yet?" asked Misato, peering over her bank of monitors.

"Not yet, General," said Hyuga.

"What are they waiting for? Do they want that Angel to blow up half the forest and the city with it before they let us help out?"

"They're saying Eva-15 hasn't had enough opportunity to press an advantage."

Misato huffed. "It's a lot easier to press an advantage with two instead of one."

But for the moment, the Angel and Unit-15 squared off on the highway, at the edge of an expansive forest, with the German artillery pieces retreating down the road. If the Angel were angry about this, it didn't show it in any obvious way. After all, it had no eyes to show emotion with, no mouth to twist in rage. So though the Angel did spin up its rings, I can't say there was any emotion in it. Maybe there was, but since the Angel held still as it did so, I felt it was simply acting, without emotion or regard for what Unit-15 had done.

How easy it is to dehumanize what doesn't look or speak like us, right? In that, I was quite wrong.

The Angel barreled down the road, tearing asphalt from the ground, and it pulled Unit-15 into the air, too.

But Unit-15 was ready for that: it drew a rifle-like weapon from its vertical shoulder pylon. The rifle shot out a grappling hook that clawed into the Angel's AT field. The tether reeled the Eva toward the Angel, and the Eva's teeth sank into the AT field.

The Angel turned and drove the Eva into the highway surface. Like a farmer at a plow, the Angel pushed and pushed, and the connected mass barreled off the freeway, into the forest of tall, thin trees.

When the two finally lost momentum, the Angel bounced upward, ripping itself free of the Eva's jaws. The Eva lay in a newly-dug trench, surrounded by dirt, wood, and asphalt. It struggled to its feet, swaying for balance and footing.

"General," said Hyuga, "the Germans are giving us the green light."

"You don't say." Misato smiled, sitting back in her chair. "Took them long enough. All right, begin the separation sequence."

The controllers rolled through the procedure for an aerial launch, and as they were making their reports back to our commander, I got on the line to Nozomi. "We're on," I said. "Are you ready?"

Nozomi wrapped her hands around the controls and stared ahead. "Ready as ever,"

The controllers reported back with everything set, and Hyuga nodded. "We're _go_ for separation. Optimal launch point expected in fifteen seconds."

Fifteen seconds to the maw of madness. Fifteen seconds to your heart racing at 130 beats per minute. Fifteen seconds to squaring off with something that should not be, from a place we should never have known.

I met Nozomi's eyes—for once, she looked directly at the virtual window. I gave her a smile to reassure her, but I think it must've had the opposite effect: she tilted her head down, looking at me from just under her eyebrows, and said,

"It's gonna be okay, yeah? Let's do this together."

I nodded, and I wiped some sweat from my brow.

"Separation in nine…" said Hyuga.

I looked around the room for one last moment, one moment of peace before the action began for real. From her position with the Eva technicians and engineers, Asuka gave me a quick wave. Others in the control room scooted forward and leaned toward their arrays of monitors.

And at the front of the room, just beneath the projector screens, a man with red glasses stared back at me.

"Separation in five, four, three—"

Even though he was looking straight at the left projector screen, counting off the seconds, Captain Hyuga didn't see that man.

Nor did I, when I looked at the front of the room again.

"Two, one, separation!"

Nozomi lurched against the belt seat restraint. Unit-14, encased in an aerodynamic launch vehicle, released from the top of its carrying aircraft and glided freely. The carrying aircraft pitched down and dove out of the way, leaving the Eva clear to fly into the battlefield as a fifty-ton missile of flesh, metal, and electronics.

When the Eva came close, the launch vehicle blasted itself apart, and Unit-14 drew its prog knife, leading with the vibrating tip. The knife touched the Angel's AT field, and—

TSSCH! Our monitors overloaded with digital static.

"Nozomi!" I leapt out of my seat, eyes glued to the front projector screens. "Nozomi, can you hear me!"

"Urk," she grunted, and against the background of white noise, an outline of her body in the entry plug faded into view. She held her arms over her face, and they cast long shadows over her chest and the seat behind her. "What is that?"

It was the Angel.

The Eva lay prone in a crater, with shattered trees lining the rim. The Angel hovered before Unit-14 at the other side, and its two orbiting rings had stopped and locked into place, aligned with each other. The Angel had flattened itself into a disc, showing a circular face to Unit-14, and in the center of that face, the Angel's white central body beamed with bright, radiant light. It bathed the Eva in its glow, and through the Eva's holographic interface, that light shone on Nozomi, too.

"Don't look directly into it," I said. "You can back off and let Unit-15 distract it for a while."

She gaped at me quizzically and looked directly into the comm window. She gestured forward with her arm. "You don't see that?"

"I know it's hard to look at, but—"

"There's a person in there, Ikari!"

A half-dozen heads turned my direction, but it's not like I had any answers. I saw what they were seeing—a bright light, blinding and intense, and that was all.

"What do you mean, Nozomi? What do you see?"

"It looks like a woman, or a girl? She—" Her eyes widened; her lips curled, and she pushed herself back in her seat. "Okay, Ikari, there's a person in there, and she's talking to me like she knows me. What the hell's going on here?"

My heart skipped a beat. "It may—it might be, well…" I wiped my eyelid clean, and I hunched over the keyboard. "It might be trying to make a connection with you, or distract you? Don't listen to it. Don't pay it any attention. Do you hear me?"

She clamped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes tight. "Kinda hard to do that when it's blasting my ears off!" she yelled.

"Nozomi!" I shook the monitor and camera perched atop it. "Nozomi, can you hear me?"

Wincing, she shook her head at the camera. "It's all noise here!"

I pounded my hand on the desk, and I called out over my shoulder, "Misato?"

Eyes narrowed, Misato drummed her fingers on her desk. "Hyuga, your recommendation?"

He took his headset partway off. "Unit-15 stalls, and if there's no improvement in the situation, go to Contingency Noah."

Misato grimaced, and she ran her hand through her hair. "Sell the Germans on it, then."

Hyuga got on the line to the Germans personally, giving them instructions in their native tongue. Unit-15, with its long, slender arms, wound up and stabbed and swiped at the Angel with a prog knife, but that only drew the Angel's ire. The Angel turned its outer ring 90 degrees, cutting its blinding gaze in two. The split beam froze both Eva, but while Nozomi struggled against that light, Unit-15 flinched only briefly. It shrugged off the attack and stabbed at the ring itself, and energy from the AT field radiated outward.

"That's a weak point," said Misato. "Get the Americans on the horn; we need those rods targeted at the Angel's rings. Time to impact?"

"Sixty seconds."

Misato's eyes fell to me. "Shinji, get her ready."

I scoffed. "How? I can't reach her."

She put on a sad smile. "This is the job we asked you to do, isn't it?"

I adjusted the headset over my ear. Nozomi was still doubled over in agony. The Angel's light cast her shadow along the back of the entry plug. There was no escaping its searing, screeching glare.

I pressed down hard on the transmit switch. "Nozomi, are you with me?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, what?" she shouted. "This thing is trying to rearrange my synapses here!"

"Try to shut it out, all right?" I pulled the camera from the top of my monitor and held it in my hand. "Nozomi," I said, "this is part of the job; I don't like that it's that way, but that's what it is. You need to get out of there. The Noah Contingency is in effect. Everything in the area is going to be a smoking ruin in less than a minute if you don't break free from that Angel and get out of there. Please!"

Her body contorted in unnatural shapes, as though she could drive out the voice in her head, the images in her mind, just by pressing hard enough with her hand. And the Eva? It mirrored her movements. The armor plates ground and scraped against each other in a warbling wail.

"I'm doing everything I can here, Ikari!" Nozomi cried out. "I don't know how!"

"Try harder!" I squeezed the armrest of my chair, and my fingers warped the cheap plastic. "Don't let it inside you! Push it out! It doesn't know you; it doesn't know who you are. Make yourself into a wall and don't let it in any further!"

She sat straight and tall, staring into the light. Her chest heaved with every breath, and her gaze bored into the center of that creature's glow. She growled, and that growl grew to a cry, then a cry to a guttural shout, blasting the radio with a coarse, throaty sound.

But the light pushed back at her, withering and implacable. Its force alone drove Nozomi and Eva-14 back and into the air, holding the Eva suspended like a ragdoll.

When Unit-15 bit at the Angel's AT field, the Angel spun around and dragged Nozomi along in the light like a wrecking ball. The two Eva's smashed into each other and tangled up, and Nozomi rattled against her seat restraints like a pinball against a maze of bumpers. Each blow zapped some life from her, and her shout faded to a whimper, punctuated by heavy breaths. She hung lifeless and limp against the restraints.

"Urgh, Ikari," she muttered. "Not sure I've got it in me to do any more than that…."

"But you need to try!" I said back. "Try anyway! Try harder! Do something!"

"She can't."

There was another voice that spoke to me—a voice that didn't belong in that room.

No, it was a voice that didn't belong anywhere. It was a voice that belonged to something that never should've existed.

The voice belonged to the stranger in the satin hood.

They (it?) stood beside my cubicle, between Major Hyuga's station and mine. They were dressed in pure white satin robes with dark purple trim—in a band that left a small gap of white at the edge of the fabric. On their hood, that trim went over the stranger's nose.

"She can't."

The stranger held their hands together in front of their chest and beneath their sleeves—if they even actually had hands at all.

"She can do nothing," said the stranger, in a voice that toed the line between masculine and feminine—indistinct, nondescript, echoing. "And you can't help her."

I swiveled to face forward, and I covered my microphone with my hand for a moment. "Watch me," I said.

"Watch you fail?"

That was _not_ an indistinct voice.

I knew that voice. At one point I'd forgotten what it sounded like. I'd imagined hearing it, yes—in dreams I was too ashamed to admit to. But as with all things you imagine, if it's not reinforced by the real thing, you forget what it's really like.

I remember—the first time I heard that voice again, it took me a second to realize, yes, _that's_ what my father sounded like.

The first time I saw those eyes—behind red, tinted lenses—it took me a second to realize, yes, _that's_ what my father looked like.

So much of him had become unreal to me, a collection of faded memories recalled imperfectly, that I was surprised he would speak to me, surprised that I could see him at all.

Just as I was surprised then, to see him staring at me from beside my cubicle.

I stared at him, open-mouthed. Some little bone inside me shook with every word he spoke, like a glass in resonance with an opera singer's pure tone. Dial it up a little louder, and it would shatter.

"You can't reach her." His words were flat, his gaze unwavering. He didn't take the time even to blink, let alone breathe. "You can't reach her through the radio. You can't reach her through the air."

"Shut up." I mumbled that, shut my eyes tight, and turned my head away.

Hyuga peered through the clear plastic divider between our stations. "Shinji, what's wrong? What's happening?"

"She is alone," said my father. "She is alone, and there is nothing you can do to save her, Shinji."

There was a sound from the monitor; the beam of light pulsed, and when the disturbance reached Nozomi, she groaned. She tensed up. Every little touch, every sensation—they were like lightning to her, charged with the electricity of emotion. And the only way to keep those feelings out? Curl up into a ball. That's what she did.

"Control, minimal plug depth plus five percent," said one of the controllers.

"Understood," said Misato, who stood at her position, observing the whole of the room ahead and beneath her. She sighed at that before announcing to the room, "All right, we're doing this as we are. Ops, do what you need to do. Save the pilot, and save the Eva."

"Yes, General." Hyuga let me be. Standing beside his station, he commanded the rest of the room. "NCI, at impact minus five, let's remove the synch rate limiters. Systems, we'll move to combat plug depth at the same time. It's going to hurt, but anything we can do to help her defend herself from the blast. Let's go!"

The room erupted in a flurry of cross-talk and chatter, as individual controllers tweaked and adjusted the Eva for impact.

"Impact minus ten," said a controller.

Misato leaned forward, gripping the front edge of her station table. "Give us the wide shot on panel three," she said.

On the rightmost panel, the camera view changed to a long-distance shot parallel to the horizon. The Eva and the Angel? So far away they were but tiny blips near the ground, if that. No, they were insignificant compared to the bright white lines being traced out against the sky—from the sky to ground.

Unit-15 bolted from scene, leaping away like an expert hurdler. That left only the Angel and Nozomi at the impact point, with the clock ticking down.

"Impact in six, five—"

"Combat depth!"

"Limiters off!"

Nozomi shouted, eyes bulging from their sockets. She clamped her hands over her ears and pressed her head against the back of the plug seat.

And my father leaned over my shoulder, smiling. "You see?"

I tore my eyes away from him, and on the radio control panel, I muted the entry plug. I sat back, closed my eyes, and felt the glow of the impact when it washed over the main screens.

Project Noah, they called it—a clean, humane way to rain destruction on whatever so much as insults you. They took dense metal rods and dropped them from orbit, you see. At speeds unimaginable, they drove through whatever they were set upon, piercing and shattering the target or obliterating it with high-velocity molten tungsten.

It was a cleansing fire, that rain. It cleansed everything.

Everything where the rods struck.

Everything as far as the eye could see around that.

And when I opened my eyes again, that's all I saw. I saw fire.

The fire took my father away.

The smoke took the Angel away.

The charred earth took Unit-14 away.

A solid blue flame engulfed my monitor, taking Nozomi away, too.

I took off my headset and threw it aside, leaving it in a corner of my station. I sat back and let my emotions take me where they may.

Even though my tears could do nothing to put those flames out.


	4. Sisters

**Sisters**  
 _Chapter Four_

I've always liked the mountains, you know.

The mountains stand aside from everything beneath them. It's harder for living things to thrive and grow near the peak. It may be cold or windy at the summit, but that wind drowns everything else out, and the cold just tells you that you're far from the heat waves that had become the country's permanent climate. Those sweltering, year-long summers can't touch you at the top of a mountain.

It may come as no surprise, then, that I thought of my penthouse as my own private mountain, in a way. It sat at the top of our building, with a clear view of the city in all directions, obstructed by only a couple skyscrapers of similar size.

With a view like that, you know quite well—there's absolutely no one else around you.

#

It was morning, and that meant sunlight coming in through our bedroom windows. Those golden rays streamed through the bedroom door and into the main room, casting faint shadows in the outline of the doorframe.

I sat in the main room, with my neck and above in that shadow. You can't watch television with the sun in your eyes, after all.

"Do you see the cost of this war? Do you see how futile hopes poison the earth itself?"

I saw. I saw well. I saw on the screen vast clouds of smoke billowing into the sky. Fires clung to its fuel—a forest that had once expanded as far as the eye could see. But starting with an ashen crater, the fire had spread outward, casting the whole countryside under a dark haze.

"All this could have been avoided."

The camera cut away from this footage, showing the speaker: a man with an off-white visor for eyes. He stood beside a screen with the disaster footage playing on a loop and said,

"But this is only the beginning of what is to come, if mankind is stubborn enough to resist. Lay down your arms. Surrender yourselves and join us in paradise."

The screen switched to a woman at an anchor desk. "That message from Seele was uploaded and distributed sometime last night. As yet, Seele have not taken responsibility for the North Berlin Fire, but they've claimed to have sunk two South Korean warships in the past week, and they're widely believed to have bases and training facilities in the uncontrolled Hendguan Mountains of Myanmar.

"Now, in economic news this morning, the T2SE is down three percent already on the day, with losses worst in the agriculture sector, as several major fisheries on the Pacific Coast announced failures in their ocean reclamation efforts…"

I muted the channel and got up, stumbling to get my balance. I had to pee.

Why is it we have to pee, anyway?

Couldn't our single-celled ancestors have found some other way to deal with toxins? Why couldn't we just exude waste from our pores? We already sweat. Why should we have to do something that requires conscious effort? Why should we have to stop what we're doing just to rid ourselves of waste? Isn't that already a wasteful effort? It's time wasted simply to dispose of waste. That's a double waste. A double waste.

Yes, that's it. It was more than wasteful. When you pee, it's taking something out of you. Whenever fluids leave you, they're taking some of your spirit. That dark yellow fluid coming out of me? That was a sign of effort. All my body's effort to keep me alive, straining on scant drops of water, right? That effort poured from me, leaving me with nothing. When blood seeps from a wound, it takes the stuff of life with it: oxygen, to break down sugar and gain energy; iron, to bind it and deliver it; and so on. When semen oozes out of you, it takes away the stuff needed to make more life. There could've been a baby in that white film. Instead, it's just something you wipe away with a tissue. How disgusting.

On my way out of the toilet, I stopped at the washroom sink. There, in the mirror, I saw something else that seeps out of you: oil and sweat. Try as you might, those things don't go away entirely with soap and water. There's always a little there.

And it clings to hair, too. There was a lot of hair on my face. I felt it with one hand. The hair was still short and thin, but it was there, trapping those oils so they couldn't be washed away. Hair grows everywhere, if you do nothing to stop it. And even on top of a mountain, a face full of hair can still feel hot.

Bzzz! That was the special phone. Not the regular phone. The special phone. You see, we installed a switch in the regular phone to disable the ringer, but not for the special phone. That's why it was special. The special phone was the only one that could speak on its own.

Though, come to think of it, that should've made it a regular phone, and the other phone should've been the special phone. I can't believe we never thought of that.

The special phone was in the kitchen, hanging on the wall like something out of the '90s. Maybe that's why it was special.

I went to the kitchen and put the handset to my ear. "Yes?"

"Ah, hello. This is the door."

Yes, that's why he was talking to me on the special phone.

"There's someone here to see you."

"Who?"

"A girl—about 150 centimeters, hair in a short ponytail, slim build."

The phone slipped out of my hand, and I grabbed the kitchen counter to support myself.

"Hello?" came the faint voice from the special phone. "Are you still there?"

I fumbled with the phone cord, drawing the handset back to my ear. "Yes, yes, I'm here, sorry," I said. "Is there—ah, maybe this is strange. Is there another time?"

"She's very insistent, sir."

My eyes scanned across the penthouse—from the cushion in front of the muted television, to the table with plates of food still in their places, to the glimpse of the bedroom with disheveled sheets. I shut my eyes and sighed.

"All right, send her up."

"Very well, sir."

I hung up. An elevator ride isn't long enough to make tea. Besides, I doubted she was there to enjoy refreshments and make smalltalk. I put a pair of slippers by the door for her to use and sat in front of the television once again, taking in its silent images of war, politics, and idol rumors.

She knocked on the door, and I didn't move. "It's open," I called out.

She crept in gingerly and eased the door shut behind her. "'Scuse me," she said, kicked on the slippers I'd left for her, and stood in the entryway. "So, here you are."

There I was, and there she was—Nozomi Horaki. I might not have been a pleasant sight, but neither was she. Her hand was wrapped up in bandages, and the skin on one side of her face was red and irritated. One of her eyes wouldn't open all the way, and she dragged her right foot as she walked toward me. I was there, but not all of her was.

She took a seat at the table, cradling a sketchpad under her arm. She sniffed at the air, looked at me, and scooted her cushion to the far side of the table. She moved a couple plates aside, saying,

"Didn't like your breakfast?"

"Asuka needs it more than me. I might finish later, but I might not. I've been thinking about changing my look, you know? Lose weight. Grow a beard." I scratched under my chin. "Stuff like that."

She scoffed at that. "If you wanna grow a beard, you gotta do something clean and precise. This scruffy look?" She shook her head. "Not working."

I rubbed my hands over my cheeks. "You don't think so, huh?"

She rolled her eyes, and she put her sketchbook aside, staring me down with both eyes. "Come on, Ikari. We've got work to do. Let's go back to the base. We've got an Angel to kill."

I frowned. "We do?"

"Yeah? Yeah, we do. So let's go." She knocked on the table twice. "Let's go; let's go. It's on the move. We should be getting ready."

We should, should we? We should go back and do what we did before, right? With Nozomi's eye that wouldn't open all the way? With the burns and their tiny blisters on her cheek? With a hand so heavily bandaged she couldn't even hold a pencil, let alone the Eva's controls?

"After what you've been through?" I shook my head, and I took the remote to change the channel. "You can't seriously want to go fight that thing again."

"I'm not dead, am I?"

"Don't say that!" I slammed the remote on the table, and the battery cover went flying.

Nozomi bolted to her feet. She clutched her sketchbook close to her chest, like a piece of armor.

I bowed my head, turning aside. "Sorry. But Nozomi, there are worse things than being dead."

She crept back to the table, but she remained standing. "Yeah, well, I guess I gotta handle it, right?"

"You think you can? What about what the Angel showed you?"

"That—" She looked away, scoffing. "That's not that important right now, is it? It wasn't fun, but I'm not the one holed up at home, not having seen anybody in a week, not having bathed in—"

I planted a hand on the table and stared her down. "What. Did. You. See?"

Hey good eye, bright and steady, locked on mine, and she stiffened. "Why should I tell you? Was I shaken up back there? Yeah, I was. That thing—it tried to talk to me, okay? But you know what gets me way more than having some alien _thing_ try to push itself into my head? After the rod hit, I might not have been able to move, but I could still hear. I could still speak. You know what I heard on the radio? I heard Katsuragi and Hyuga and all the rest of them. You know who I didn't hear?"

I faced forward again, letting the images on the TV screen blur into shapeless, blue-tinted ghosts. "I took my headset off."

"No shit! Why?"

"I have no interest in watching you be destroyed." I said. "Piloting Eva destroys a person. If it doesn't destroy your body, it destroys your mind." I laughed. "You don't even know it's happening, do you?"

Nozomi took her cushion and laid it beside me, forcing herself into view. "So what if it is? Somebody's gotta do it. If I don't, someone else will just take my place."

"Yeah, that's true." I smiled, eyeing her from the side. "And you can be a pilot, if you like. But Nozomi, someone else can take my place, too. I don't have to be there. I don't have to be part of that system—the system that will destroy you. I won't be a part of it."

She scoffed again, pressing a hand against the side of her head. "What the hell did _you_ see?"

"Why should I answer that when you didn't?"

She narrowed her eyes. "So that's how you wanna be, huh?" She climbed to her feet—gingerly, for that was the best she could do on one wounded ankle. "Okay, Ikari," she said, kicking off her slippers at the threshold. "Whatever you feel like doing. But just so you know? I didn't ask you to protect me. I didn't ask you to save me from being a pilot. I didn't expect you would keep me from being battered, beaten, or broken."

"Then what do you want from me?"

"Just be there, like you said you would be. Try to do something. Try to be someone different from who you used to be." She looked me up and down. "Or don't, if that's how you want to be."

I climbed up after her. "Nozomi—"

"Bye, Ikari."

She disappeared down the entryway, and she slammed the door behind her.

Ah well. I didn't tend to like having guests around, anyway.

I headed to bed shortly after that. I was tired, for some reason. It must've been the news. There's nothing good on during the day, after all. The hours pass by faster if you're not awake to deal with them, anyway.

#

And then, I was in the theater.

The theater never changed. Its dark carpet didn't show footprints. The exit lights glowed unwavering.

I sat in the front row with Rei Ayanami, and we watched the world move on without us. The screen showed a forest on fire, bathed in smoke as firefighters battled to contain it, but as they sprayed countless liters of water on the blaze, their hopes flowed out too, only to fizzle and turn to hot air and steam.

"Am I supposed to feel bad about this?" I wondered aloud.

"That's your choice." Ayanami stared ahead, not even looking at me. "It is what it is."

The view before us shifted—to Asuka, standing before some kidney-shaped thing with vessels and tubes coming out of it. She and a half-dozen other scientists stood by with clipboards and tablets, watching it from beyond the walls of a glass enclosure.

The scene shifted again—to Misato in a situation room, standing over a virtual sand table, with holographic figures representing armies, tanks, planes, and Angels. She adjusted a large, black-and-green figure that towered over the others, changing its facing to the west on the map, but she stood over it, frowning, as the clock ticked incessantly, announcing that the morning was slipping away.

"They are who they are," said Ayanami, and with a wave of her hand, the scene shifted once more:

To Nozomi on a train.

There was no one else in the traincar, but she sat cradling her sketchpad on her knees anyway. Her left-handed strokes were laborious and coarse, but they traced out well enough the image in her mind: a boy sitting in front of a television, dwarfed by his own shadow.

"You're pushing her away," said Ayanami, eyeing me from the side.

I scoffed, turning away. "Why shouldn't I? It was stupid from the start. Just because I was a pilot before doesn't mean I can help her."

"That's why she's better off without your guidance?"

Down below, Nozomi limped off the train. With her sketchbook tucked under her arm, she emerged into the sparse environment north of town, with old farms overgrown and unkempt, with weeds running rampant and old roads falling prey to cracks and pits. She trudged along one of these old roads, with her foot dragging along at her side.

"No," I said, watching Nozomi's every step. "It doesn't matter what I do."

Ayanami left her seat, and she kneeled in front of me, forcing her body in front of my gaze. Her red eyes were hard and intent.

"She'll be destroyed," said Ayanami.

Even still, I looked away from her, knowing there was nowhere to hide. "You of all people should know…."

She nodded, and she looked to the screen again, with one hand on my armrest. "You might be right."

I cocked my head. "About what?"

"That you would not make a difference."

I sighed. "Then why am I here?"

"It's not enough."

The scene below shifted and blurred. Gray shapes coalesced into a human-like figure, arms spread at its shoulders. Tendrils held it by the wrists and ankles, suspending the thing in mid-air. Like roots into soil, those tendrils coursed through the creature's skin and armor—its black and green striped armor plating.

Over a serene environment of a forest and a lake, Unit-14 stood crucified, with the cross growing out of its own head and back, culminating in a thorny halo of brown tendrils perched around the Eva's skull.

For all this, labored breaths echoed through the area around us. In another section of the scene below, we saw directly into the entry plug. The tendrils had grown through the gap in the entry plug's door, gripping the pilot—Nozomi—just like the Eva had been. She hung her head down, and only her pained breaths testified that she was alive. The plug's virtual environment failed her, leaving Nozomi alone to struggle in dim, blood-red emergency lighting.

Outside, a jeep had parked at the base of the Eva. A pair of loudspeakers, tied to the back of the jeep with bungie cord, blared out words at the Eva.

"This is the natural order of things." Microphone in hand, the man with the white visor over his eyes stared up at the Eva. "Of the four knowledgeable races, each has brought itself to the brink of destruction. We annihilate each other with atomic power. The Zenunim? They fought genocidal wars with viruses tailored to the genes of their enemies. Such destruction is inevitable. Life itself is destructive. We are only trying to save humanity from itself—and we must."

On and on the dark sermon went. Lorenz bombarded Nozomi with tales of horror and death, painting his cause as the humane alternative.

I squeezed the armrests with both hands and stared into the sky. "What is this supposed to do? This is vile, Ayanami. Make it stop!"

"Do you trust me?"

I studied her from the side. The ghost had the look of Ayanami, yes. Every hair was in the right place, and her uniform was exactly the way it had been in Tokyo-3.

But she was still in an unreal place, doing unreal things. Those uniforms didn't exist anymore. She hadn't aged a day.

"Please don't ask me that," I said, looking aside once more.

She nodded at that, and she turned toward the screen again. "You don't have to listen to me," she said. "You only need to listen."

What I listened to was another voice—this one much fainter than the booming sermon from Keel Lorenz. Through intermittent static, Horaki's voice trickled into the entry plug.

"Nozomi? Nozomi—can you—me?"

The pilot's breath caught for a moment, but she let it all out again, head hanging low, and didn't respond.

"Nozomi," said Horaki, "I don't know if you can hear me. I don't—if you can answer, but you need to stay strong. Stay strong and don't stop fighting. Be a little stubborn. That suits you. Be stubborn, and there's nothing they can do to you, Nozomi. Do you hear me?"

That hopeful note rang through the entry plug, but Nozomi's labored breaths didn't waver.

I sighed, shaking my head. "So this is the future if I'm not there? This is our wonderful life ahead?"

"No," said Ayanami.

The entry plug radio crackled to life again. It was a boy's voice. "Nozomi," he said, "I hope you can hear me. I hope—you're still there."

My eyes widened, and I glanced at Ayanami.

"Look," she said, staring ahead, "and listen."

"I'm sorry," said the boy on the radio. "I knew something—might eventually happen. I don't know—enough to stop it. We put you through a lot. We put you through too much. I don't think any apology—make up for that. You don't deserve to be there. You don't—suffer like this. We want to get you out, but I can't ask anything more of you. It's your choice to keep fighting to hold on or not. If—we're coming for you. I want you to know that. We're coming for you, and we will not stop—back with us. Count on it, Nozomi."

I shook my head, and I left my seat like it was aflame. "That's the best I can do? Ayanami, those are empty words. They don't mean anything. They don't accomplish anything. They're just hollow hopes that have nothing to back them up!"

Ayanami closed her eyes, still kneeling serenely, almost like a monk in meditation. "Then you would deny her even that?"

On the screen, in the entry plug, Nozomi's head rose. It rose a slim centimeter, but it rose nonetheless. She wrapped her fingers around the tendrils holding her, and she squeezed. She gritted her teeth and squeezed. She let out a short grunt and squeezed some more.

It was futile, of course. Those tendrils were as hard as wood, and she breathed and strained even harder, for all her effort.

"If you would," said Ayanami, "then maybe you belong over there."

She looked past me, and I followed her gaze. At the far end of the row, the hooded stranger watched the scene, too, and the otherworldly glow of the screen shined off the stranger's satin hood.

#

It was light again. Sunlight permeated the room, and the skyscrapers outside cast long shadows toward the horizon—a far cry from the morning, when the sun's rays poured directly into the bedroom.

I lay flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling. In retrospect, it's not a good idea to sleep through the day. Strange things can visit you in your dreams.

"You'll suffer, too, if you try to guide her."

I scrambled upright. From the bedroom doorway, Rei Ayanami stared back at me.

"And it's true you don't deserve that," she said.

I stared, open-mouthed, struggling for words. "Is that—is that supposed to make me keep going the way I am?"

"It is what it is."

I scoffed, and I buried my face in my hands. "I don't understand," I said, wiping my face clean, and I opened my eyes again. "Ayanami—"

She was gone.

I climbed out of bed and peered through the doorway. In the main room, the TV kept chattering away about proceedings of the Diet. The plates on the table were where I'd left them.

I wandered back into the bedroom, and I plopped into the chair at my working desk. It was a nice, comfortable chair. It reclined. That's something you need, after all. You don't use it when you're working, granted—it's hard to write when leaning back—but when you need to take a break, it's a good thing to have.

The stack of letters was taller than ever, probably half a meter high. You couldn't get mail delivered to the base very easily—not even my mail, which was checked and scanned and sniffed maybe ten times over.

Aside from that stack, which I slid to the corner, there was the phone—that is, the regular phone. The great red light was silent, but the text _38 new messages_ was clear enough. I pressed down on the _erase_ button. No new messages—that was always a welcome sight. If only life were like an answering machine, right? Then you could wipe the past away and start anew whenever you wanted.

And having started anew, I picked up the phone and dialed. The other end picked up immediately.

"Hello, Horaki residence."

I sat upright. "Ah, hello, Horaki? It's Ikari."

"Ikari? Well, this is a surprise. I thought you didn't want to talk to people right now."

Her voice cut through me like a knife. I laughed it off nervously.

"Sorry about that. I was a little short with Nozomi. I haven't adjusted to this well." I glanced out the window, at the mountains. "I know I need to do better."

Horaki sighed. "No, no, don't worry about it. This is difficult. How are you doing, Ikari? Are you feeling better?"

"I'm getting there, I think. Actually…" I scratched a fingernail in a groove of the desk's wood. "I think I might like to talk to you."

"About Nozomi?"

"That's right."

There was a long pause.

"Okay," she said. "But Ikari, I do have one condition."

"What's that?"

"Have you taken a bath lately?"

I sniffed at the air and winced. "I'll, um, make sure it's not a problem."

#

 _Why did you become an Eva pilot?_

I've heard that question a lot—sometimes even from my own lips.

Some people want to hear that I chose to save the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. There's a huge difference between knowing what the right thing to do is and having the courage and temerity to do it. And even if it's right to be an Eva pilot, right to try to save the world, that doesn't mean it's wrong not to be one. Or at least, it's no so wrong. If there's someone else who can do it almost as well, and if they want to do it more than you do, then why not?

But I did become an Eva pilot. Maybe I would've felt like scum if I made someone else do it instead—especially if that person were bloodied and weak. But, looking back on that, I realize now I was manipulated. You see, my father may have needed me to be an Eva pilot, but that's not the same as wanting me. When you're wanted, people try to please you and validate your efforts. When you're only needed, validation like that is just a tactic that can be employed. When that need is merely material, there's no way you can feel wanted, and if you refuse to do what's asked of you, those people who need something will find a way to make you give it up.

Children can't always recognize that. No, _adults_ don't always recognize that, either. It's one of the easiest ways to manipulate someone, though: if you can convince someone they're wanted even when they're not, they'll do anything.

They'll climb into a monstrous machine and fight for you.

They'll face horrors from beyond and expose their souls for you.

And the worst part of all that?

If they think you want them badly enough, they'll do all of this with a smile on their face. If you call them up and just say, "You did a good job," they'll take on ten time that much suffering in a heartbeat.

My father, you see—he was a master of that.

And maybe that's just the nature of people: we often invest ourselves in others without getting back exactly what we want.

#

"Isn't that a bit warm?"

Such were the first words from Hikari Horaki's mouth when I showed up on her doorstep.

I can't blame her for them, really. It was thirty degrees outside, and there I was in a green hood, with sweat running down my face.

The only solace there was the long shadow the building cast over me. The Horaki home was a large, squareish building with thin, white, painted blocks making up its facade. It stood clean and pure on a street corner while the house across from it bore the scars of time: broken windows, peeled paint, and more. Most of the houses in Azumino were like that one, not like the Horaki family's.

Then again, I expect most homes weren't maintained by people like Horaki.

"Ah, forgive me," she said, a little color coming to her cheeks. She stepped aside, making the doorway clear. "Please, come in. Nozomi's gone out, so it should be just the two of us. Sister won't be off work for an hour at least."

I peeled off my hood and sunglasses and stepped in. The wooden floor of the entryway gleamed, and my hand left fingerprints on the steel door handle. All that could only be the former class rep's work, and when I reached the main room, I saw more of the same: spotless white carpet, seat cushions that were perfectly circular, and framed sketches and photos that lined up level within fractions of a degree.

Her sister Kodama may have been the breadwinner of the house, but the middle sister maintained it with meticulous care. Indeed, no sooner did I sit down than Horaki had ducked into the kitchen and returned with a tray of tea, traditional sweets, and a warm, damp towel.

"Sorry, Ikari, but you're bleeding." She scratched at her own neck and offered the towel.

Frowning, I wiped up and down my throat and found the cloth stained a faded red. I folded up the used towel, which she took away just as quickly.

"Did you cut yourself?" she asked from the kitchen.

"I must've," I said, feeling the smooth skin of my cheeks. "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it. It means you're ready to help Nozomi, right?"

Indeed, as soon as she came back from washing her hands, she bombarded me with a barrage of thoughts on the matter:

"So, where do we begin?" She pulled a notepad from under the table. "I know Nozomi is stubborn, but she does listen to reason. Just knowing that you've come here should help convince her you're serious about this. She needs to understand that people can have a tough time coping with this sort of thing." She nodded to herself, proud of her own thoroughness. "If Nozomi can grasp that, then I don't think there should be any problem with you two working together again."

I sat frozen, eyes wide, holding my teacup a centimeter from my lips.

"No?" Horaki blinked, and she put the notepad down. "You don't think so?"

I cleared my throat and set the teacup aside. "Sorry, it's not that. I'm not here to talk about getting back in Nozomi's good graces—though I do think I'll need to do that, at some point."

She closed the notepad and slid it under the table, eyeing me curiously. "What did you want to talk about, then?"

"Do you remember the last battle—the one in Germany?"

"Of course."

"The Angel paralyzed Nozomi with something—some sort of vision, something that penetrated her mind."

Horaki looked to her left, and she scooted a couple centimeters away from the table.

"Do you know what that could be?" I asked.

Her eyes locked on me. "Why do you want to know?"

"It's something the Angel could use against her again," I said, leaning forward, "or it's something another Angel could use against her, too."

Horaki pressed two fingers to her temple and closed her eyes. "Yes, and?"

I glanced aside, and I said, "Nozomi told me you had something to do with it."

"She did not!" Horaki's eyes snapped open, and she sat straight and tall. "She absolutely did not! She wouldn't."

I stared back at her, saying nothing, and Horaki let out a breath, composing herself. "Honestly…" she muttered, shaking her head. "Is this really what you want to do?" Her eyes hardened, and she stared me down. "You want to come into our house, take the unpleasantness we've buried in the past, and put it all out on the driveway for everyone to see? Is that what Nozomi wants to do?"

I winced. "Okay, no, not exactly…"

"It isn't?"

"No. I mean, I don't know. But she didn't do anything to make me think so."

Horaki eyed me through a narrowed gaze, raising an eyebrow. "If you hadn't said that, I'd have thought you were taking after your father."

I winced at that, and I looked away. Horaki refilled our cups, and for a while, that was all to be heard between us. I looked anywhere but her, really. I rubbed at a strip of stainless steel on the table, smearing a spot away. The lights in that room were so very white— _blue_ , I think they say, but only to mean that it's not yellow, not like the sun.

"Is it cold in here?" I remarked.

Horaki put her cup down and nodded. "It is, a little. It's the way it was when we got here, unfortunately. Not a lot of people around who can fix a thermostat without making a bigger mess."

"You might be able to find a working one elsewhere."

"Perhaps." Horaki sipped her tea, thinking for a moment. "But that's a bit unseemly—crawling through other people's houses trying to take what they don't use anymore. It's not so bad. We make do with what we have."

I nodded. "You could say that about a lot of things."

At that, she let out a small laugh. "I suppose so. A home, family, friends—sometimes you end up with things you didn't expect."

"Like you and Asuka?"

A tinge of color came to her cheeks. "I wouldn't say that. We're not _so_ different."

I raised an eyebrow and stifled a smile. "So you don't know anything about 'thermal expansion'?"

Her gaze hardened. "Don't you start, Shinji Ikari."

A shiver went down my spine, and I straightened up in my seat. "Sorry, blame Asuka for that. Won't happen again."

"Good." At that, she smiled slightly, and she relaxed. "That's very Asuka, though, isn't it?"

"It is. It throws me off sometimes."

"Me, too!" She shook her head in disbelief. "I don't know if her behavior is a Western thing or just an Asuka thing, but Asuka is like a small bird—she chirps for attention if you're not giving it to her, but if you do, she's fine.

"I remember, when she came to our house in Tokyo-3 before, she shut herself in my room and played videogames all night, and she was…well, not completely all right, but she was normal, I think. Asuka has a tendency to act larger than life, but that week, she was more…" Horaki pursed her lips and glanced at the ceiling. "She acted within herself. She was no more—and no less—than what you'd expect from a fourteen-year-old girl."

"That's rare for her."

"It is. I hadn't seen that from her in quite a while. She changed. Even over that short time, those weeks and months, she changed."

"We all did."

"Yes, yes you did." Horaki glanced at one of the sketches on the wall. "So," she said, "I guess we should do something. We don't exactly have a lot of time."

"We don't?"

"Nozomi will probably be back soon for dinner. I have enough for an extra plate. It's not much, but—"

I winced. "Ah, no, this is more than enough. I couldn't."

"Of course you can. It's no trouble."

"No, that's not what I mean." I rose, tugging at my sweater to keep it from bunching up. "Thanks for the tea, but I don't think I'm needed any longer. You know there's something wrong. You and Nozomi can work it out. I just needed to make sure you understood."

"Really?" Horaki frowned, and she slid her teacup aside. "All right. I'll do my best, then, to make sure Nozomi is ready for this. After that, I'll be trusting her to your care again."

I shook my head. "I'm just here to nudge her in the right direction every once in a while. That's all."

At that, Horaki rose as well, and she eyed me with a steady stare. "What happened that day? In the control room?"

I glanced aside. "I'm not asking about what's between you and Nozomi."

"No, you're not." Her stare broke, and she looked at the teacups on the table. "I appreciate that. It's easier that way, isn't it?"

"It is," I said, nodding. "Thank you for the tea."

Horaki pressed a hand to her face, with one eye shut. She didn't look at me, so I drifted to the entryway, left the guest slippers at the edge, and made for the door. I was halfway there when a voice called after me,

"It happened in October."

I turned around. Horaki was there, watching me from the threshold to the rest of the house.

"It happened in October," she said again. "October, two years ago."

I looked aside. "I don't need to know this."

"I know. It would be easier if you didn't, but…" She smiled. "There's still some tea, you know."

I turned my back on her. I sped for the door and flung it open. A wave of heat engulfed me; the sun glared at me from across a weed-ridden field.

And all I had to do was take one step—one step into that unmaintained wild, where rain had washed away all the tire tracks on the gravel road, where overbearing light had peeled the paint of the house across the way.

That was the nature of man's struggle, you see: the struggle against nature, nature that was ever-encroaching on civilization. And there, at the Horaki home, they had built up an island fortress of civilization to hold nature at bay. They defended that fortress with metal shaped by machines—the sharp, angled door handle, the strips of steel on the dining room table, and the like. Everything about that place was artificial, with the lights too blue to feel cozy, the corners too pointed to feel at ease.

And yet Horaki stayed there anyway. She wasn't one to be satisfied with how that house was.

And though that place was still inhospitable, though it was still cool for my taste, I closed the door in front of me, shutting the warmth and light of the outside away. I bowed my head, watching her from the corner of my eye, and said,

"Would you tell me about it—about October?"

Horaki smiled. "Okay."

#

By the dining room table, Horaki told me her story. I'll try to keep it as much in her words as possible.

"It happened in October," she said, sitting straight and tall, "but I didn't realize it until later.

"The day I understood it? That was a cooler day. Overcast, as I remember it. I was taking a walk by the rice paddies. I needed to get out, you see. We shared the house with another family at that time. They were difficult people. Their things were theirs, and our things were theirs, too, if they wanted it that way. We didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. Where else could we go? That's what we thought. So when a cooler day came, without the oppressive, overbearing sun, I took the opportunity.

"I was about a kilometer down the road when I heard the screams. At first, it was just one girl running by the train tracks. She was so far away, it was a faint cry, but no less shrill or upsetting. That's when I really noticed how empty the whole area was: there was no traffic, and except for that girl, there was no one else walking around, either.

"I hurried home, but the door was locked when I got there. I pulled on the handle; I rang the bell and cried out for someone to answer, but no one came. I thought about going around to the back, maybe to tap on a window or something, but someone stopped me: my mother."

"Your mother?" I scanned the decorations about the room: the photos and sketches and such. "Is she…?"

Horaki shook her head sadly. "No, she's not. And that should've tipped me off, right? In my head, I knew there was something wrong, but there she was. She was smiling. Her arms were wide and open. I have her freckles, you know. Father used to say that all the time.

"My mother beckoned me, and I felt _drawn_ to her, like a compass needle to the north pole, like a moth to light. I felt only love coming from her, so I hugged her, and…well…"

"That's when you found out," I said, "about Nozomi?"

Horaki nodded, casting her eyes down. "I found out about a lot of things. I found out someone used to wish I hadn't been born. That explained a lot. I found out someone didn't feel quite the same way I felt toward them, but they were willing to see things change between us. That was good. It was hard to keep secrets there, wasn't it?"

"Impossible," I said, looking at my own reflection in the teacup.

"Impossible." Horaki nodded, and she sipped her tea. "I think so, too." Horaki put the cup down and stared at it, too. She felt along a line that ran down the cup's side, and she turned the cup in place, putting that line out of view. Still, she rubbed her thumb along the cup's surface, where the line should be, with an intense expression.

"Horaki…," I said.

"It happened in October." Her eyes—steady and brilliant—locked on to mine. "I only just realized it months later. Right?"

I nodded, and Horaki went on, letting her eyes drift away from me.

"I saw, in that dream, what happened from Nozomi's view. I was in the kitchen. I had been for most of the afternoon. There was something I needed to do, you see. It was a silly thing, right? You think if you do things for people without asking them what you really want, they'll just give it to you? But that's how we all were back then. We hoped for a lot.

"I was in the kitchen, but I wasn't cooking. I stared out the window in a daze, and the phone lay on the counter beside me, buzzing with that incessant sound. Nozomi heard it, you see. She found me there, by the dirty pots and pans, by the stack of four lunchboxes with no one to take them all.

" 'Hey, Hikari?' That's what she said. She looked into the kitchen and called to me, but I didn't answer. I just squeezed the edge of the countertop. I squeezed it so hard that part of the surface snapped off underneath, but I kept holding it anyway.

"So Nozomi—she came into the kitchen and poked me. She poked me! With the eraser end of a pencil. She poked me on the end of my shoulder, and I jumped half a meter into the air!

"She scampered back, the way a small dog might run away if you yell at it. She hovered by the door, looking at me from the side, and said, 'Sis, what's wrong?' " Horaki wiped at her eye. "Do you know what I said to her?"

"Not what you wish you would've said, I guess."

"Aha!" Horaki laughed. "No, definitely not. I, um, I stood upright, and I smoothed out some wrinkles in my apron. It wasn't wrinkled—not one bit—but I smoothed it out anyway. And I asked her, 'Are you finished with your homework?'

"She said, 'I don't see how that's important right now….'

"I put my hands on hips and said, 'You can't afford to slack off, you know. It's going to be hard, getting into a good high school around here. Make sure you take the washroom trash out before dinner, too. You understand?'

"Nozomi stared at me open-mouthed, saying, 'Are you really doing this?'

"And I said, 'Homework. Washroom. Go get it done before dinner.'

"She watched me for a long time at that, with small eyes and a cold expression, and all she said was,

" 'Okay, Hikari.' And she left, and only then did I lean against the counter and cry.

"But those words stuck with me. I heard them a lot from Nozomi, in the weeks to come. I'd ask her to come to dinner, and she'd say, 'Okay, Hikari.' I'd ask her to be careful on the road to school, and she'd say, 'Okay, Hikari.' And she'd always show me the same face, too: blank and hard, like a slab of rock.

"I saw that over and over—in the real world, and in the time after 'Mother' came to me. That horrible movie reel played in front of my eyes without end, and each time I heard those words again, it was like getting stabbed in the gut. It all made me want to curl into a ball and run away from people, run away from everyone else.

"But then, after hours or days or I don't even know how long, someone came to me in that dream: Nozomi. I tried to apologize to her, but Nozomi didn't want that. She wanted to know if I would go back.

" 'Do you dare seek the hope that we can understand each other?' she said, 'even though one day, you might be betrayed, and that hope may yet abandon you?' "

I twitched, and some drops of tea spilled from my cup. " 'Betrayed'? She said that?"

"I remember it very well," said Horaki, nodding with her eyes closed. "It was strange enough to hear that I can't ever forget it."

I glanced at the ceiling, but there was nothing there: just a smooth, white surface, with a soft gradient of light from the lamp in the corner. Horaki went on.

"Nozomi came to me, asking me to meet her again, and I accepted. I came back. I found myself in the ocean, and it took weeks to get back inland. But when I got here, there they were—my sisters. We'd lost some things in that time, but we still had a house to call home, and a family to keep it together. And I—I tried to make sure it would stay that way."

"Is that so?" I asked. "I mean, after all that, after what Nozomi asked you to do, didn't you…?"

Horaki gaped at me. "Ikari, what kind of person do you think I am?"

"I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's all right." She poured me another cup of tea. "I did make my apology to Nozomi, you see. It was the first thing I did when I could get her alone."

"And she accepted it?"

"I thought she had." Horaki frowned. "The way she's been acting toward me lately, I'm not as sure anymore. I hoped it was something else, or that if she were angry with me, she would say so instead of stew about it." She met my gaze. "Stuff like this should be in the past by now, right?"

Maybe not for Nozomi. Maybe she was the kind to isolate herself and be angry, to wait day after day for the person who'd wronged her to realize it, the kind to take yearning for love and affection and twist it into hatred and displeasure because what she sought wasn't being given, and while she was needed, she wasn't needed the way she wanted to be.

#

I thanked Horaki for telling her story, and I left. Horaki offered to make me a place for dinner, but I declined, and Horaki showed me out. When that heavy steel door shut behind me, and I stood on the stoop alone, I shaded my eyes from the setting sun and looked out, over the weed-ridden rice paddies and untilled fields.

And I sat down.

I sat down and winced, for the rough concrete of the stoop wasn't too pleasant to sit on, but it was what it was. I sat there, eyes closed, until the sound of gravel crunching underfoot roused me.

"What are you doing here?"

That was Nozomi. She kept her sketchpad tucked under her arm, and her foot dragged on the driveway only a little. She stopped in front of me, looking me up and down, and said,

"You look like you're ready for a ski trip in Hokkaido."

I pulled my sunglasses off and took my hood down. "Most people at least do a double-take when they see me like this."

Nozomi rapped a pencil on her sketchpad's binding. "I'm not most people."

"No," I said, laughing to myself, "no you're not."

"Ikari." She tapped her foot, frowning. "What are you doing here?"

"I—well, that is, uh…"

My gaze drifted off her, but I found something else that was impossible to ignore. Behind Nozomi, at the edge of an abandoned rice paddy, the red-eyed ghost of a girl stood, watching us both with her unblinking gaze. Stoic and unblinking she was, unwavering in her gaze.

I cleared my throat and started again. "I came because I hoped we could understand each other, even knowing that someday I might be betrayed, and that hope would abandon me."

"What are you talking about?" asked Nozomi, raising an eyebrow.

The red-eyed ghost didn't move, either, and I smiled to myself, going on.

"I spoke with your sister," I said. "We talked for a long time, about your problems with her."

"You did?"

"Yes."

Nozomi turned her head slightly, eyeing me askance. "Because of me?"

"That's right."

Nozomi's eyes narrowed, and her lips pressed together tensely. With the sun setting behind her, she was like a magnifying glass for all that light and heat, intense enough that I pulled on the neck of my sweatshirt for relief, and I blurted out,

"Nozomi—"

"Ikari—"

We stared at one another, blinking, open-mouthed. I bowed my head. "You go first."

"All right." Nozomi tucked her pencil behind her ear, and she flipped through her sketchpad, not watching me. "You know, Ikari—I got pretty pissed at you yesterday."

"You don't say."

Her eyes flickered to me, even as she kept shuffling through the pages. "You're not funny," she said, even as the ends of her lips curled upward in a smile. Her eyes went back to the sketches. "You were really acting like a wimp, you know."

"I've been called that a lot," I said, looking away.

"I bet." She ripped a page out of the sketchpad, and she offered it to me. "But _I_ never asked you not to be that way before."

The pencil drawing showed a boy facing a TV screen, putting his back to the girl who sat across from him. Even as she slammed her hands on the table, the boy looked only at the screen. Who knew what the boy was feeling in that moment? The sketch depicted his face wholly in shadow.

"I'm sorry," said Nozomi. "Really."

I took the sketch by the corner of the page, and Nozomi let it go. She sat beside me on the concrete stoop, and her whole body sagged as she came down.

"Feeling relieved?" I asked.

"A little." The fire came back in her eyes, though, and she said, "But let's not get complacent—not you and not me. You've gotta hold on to that sketch, Ikari. Hold on to it, so we can look back on it later and say, 'I'm glad we're not like that anymore.' Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said, and I touched my hand to my forehead in salute. Nozomi huffed at that, but she said nothing.

We sat there in silence, for a time. I smoothed out the wrinkled piece of paper in my lap, admiring the level of detail. She even got the grain of the wooden table right. I could tell because there was a visible knot on one of the legs that I'd long been bothered by. More than that—it was a knot on my side of the table.

"You're making me feel guilty," I said, laughing a bit. "All I did was get the security people to take me up here. As an apology, this is a lot better than anything I could do."

"You don't have to apologize for anything. I get it."

"You do?"

"Yeah." Nozomi held up her head up with one hand, using her knee as a support, and those cool, dark eyes locked on to me. "You hate the person you used to be, don't you, Ikari?"

"Ah—uh—" I choked on these half-formed syllables, and I stared into the trees that surrounded the driveway.

"And I get that," said Nozomi. "You just need to find a way to change yourself into something you'd like."

I hissed at that. My hands came up on their own, like signal flags, broadcasting what I couldn't say. "I don't—I don't really—I'm just trying to help you get through this. That's all. Really."

Nozomi laughed and shook her head. "Well, I guess I'm okay with that. For now." She put one shoe to the concrete and rose, and I scrambled to my feet, too.

"Ah, wait!"

"What?"

"I'm trying to help you with all this—that means you need to know."

She eyed me askance again. "Know what?"

"Your sister told me what happened between you."

Nozomi pulled her sketchbook closer to her body. "She did?"

"Yeah—about October, about how she tried to reconcile with you when she came back, all of it."

"Oh, that." Nozomi brushed a couple stray hairs from her eyes. "Is that what she told you?"

"It is. So, Nozomi…." I climbed to the top step, watching her the whole time. "Is that what's been bothering you?"

Nozomi shook her head, pressing her pencil eraser against her temple. "Look, Ikari—"

"It's okay if you don't answer right now," I said, smiling. "I just might need to know. Sometime."

"No, no, look—I forgave Hikari for that a long time ago."

I raised an eyebrow. "You did?"

"Yeah. It was a tough time. She was stressed out, and people make mistakes when they're not really thinking about other people, you know?" She closed her sketchpad cover and tucked the book under her arm. "I know that. You know that. I'm not holding that against her."

"Then what is it that you saw from the Angel?"

"I saw…" Nozomi looked aside. "I saw myself."

"Yourself?" I said, frowning.

"Yeah. Do we have to do this now?" She drummed her fingers on her sketchpad's binding, and she leaned on her left foot.

"No," I said. "One step at a time, right?" I moved aside, clearing the way to the door. "We don't have to figure it all out now."

"Thanks for that." She stepped inside. "So, that means we're working together again, right? There's still an Angel to kill."

I glanced to the horizon and the setting sun. "Yeah. Count on it."

Nozomi looked at me from the side. "You sure? For real this time? I don't want to find you moping around again, Ikari."

"I—" I frowned, and I bowed my head. "It's hard for me, but—" I met her gaze. "I'm going to keep trying. I mean that."

She gave me a slight nod. "I understand. Night, Ikari."

"Good night, Nozomi."

The door closed, and I folded the sketch into quarters to keep in my sweatshirt's pouch—it was either that or let it flap around and bend in the wind, so that was an easy decision. I left the front steps and headed down the gravel driveway, with the sun casting the shadow of the mountains before me—a dark void that swallowed the cities and towns beyond.

But from that void, spots of red shined at me: a pair of spots from the red-eyed ghost who looked like Rei Ayanami.

And in her shadow stood the figure in white and gold, hooded so that their eyes couldn't be seen at all.

From the edge of the overgrown rice paddy, they watched me—and the Horaki family as well.

More and more, I began to feel that we were pawns to them—too small to appreciate their motives, too simple-minded to understand their plans.

 _The hope that we can one day understand each other._

To many of us—to me, and to Horaki—that was a hope we had no choice but to pursue. To refuse it would be nothing less than losing ourselves to a dream.

So I walked the road under their watchful gazes. I walked it, knowing different person would finish that journey.

And unlike a boy I'd known in the past, I was determined to come to love him, knowing I would accomplish nothing if I did not.

#

That person I'd become would be forged from fire—from the crucible of an Angel attack. The Angel, you see, was still out there.

When I headed back to the base, the information was waiting for me at my desk. That was clear as soon as I opened my office door.

"Well hello there!"

The information just so happened to be ingrained into Misato's head. _She_ sat at my desk, propping her feet up on the corner.

"These digs are nicer than mine, you know," she said, rubbing a finger on the desk's edge. "Usually reserved for visiting generals and such. I was thinking about taking it for myself."

I narrowed my eyes, but Misato just raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, do you want it back?"

"I do, yes."

"Do you, or don't you?" She took her feet off the desk and sat upright, looking every bit like the general she was supposed to be. "Because if you leave this space open again, I _will_ take it for myself. It's too nice to waste, you know."

"I'm sure."

"Are you?" Misato looked straight at me, and she lowered her voice. "You don't have to be here, you know."

"I don't?" I scoffed at that. "You've been pressing pretty hard."

Misato sighed. "Too hard?"

"You said it, not me," I told her.

She rubbed her eyes, and she sat back in my chair. "All right, I deserve that," she said. "I'm sorry. Let me just say it then: I don't think it's good for you to sit in your apartment and only go out with a hood over your face. I'm not asking you to be famous. I'm not asking you to speak to the world. But staying that way—you're weren't making a future for yourself. So when I saw the chance to change that, I took it. The rest is up to you."

Misato laid a hand on the desk, palm up. I stepped foward, to the desk's edge, and I took her hand in mine.

"I'm going to try it again," I said, putting on a hesitant smile. "I like Nozomi, and I think I can make a difference with her."

Misato smiled widely, and her hand tightened around mine. "You absolutely can," she said.

"That's only part of why I'm here, though," I said.

"What?"

I wiped some dust off the computer monitor's top edge. "What would you do with a computer in your office, anyway?"

Misato's jaw dropped at that. Her cheeks flushed, and she scowled. She wagged a finger at me and vacated the seat. "I am not a dinosaur, you know."

"So, you weren't friends with Ritsuko just for her skills with technical support?" I said, grinning like a loon.

"That wasn't the _only_ reason." Misato dragged one of the visitor chairs in front of the desk, and she sat down, too. She flipped a file folder around to face her, and she laid out the contents. "So, if you're going to use this office, we're going to have you do some work with it."

I sighed, and I sat back in my chair. "Where's the Angel?"

Misato smiled slyly, and she shuffled one page in particular to the top of the stack. "Glad you're here, Shinji," she said, and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. I gave her a look to make sure she understood one thing, though: that wasn't going to make up entirely for what she was asking me to do. Still, Misato scampered out before I could make that message hit home.

With Misato gone, I started scanning through the briefing. The Angel was on the way to America. After taking the better part of a week in the upper atmosphere to heal its wounds, the Angel was on the move, and both Germany and Japan would send their Eva to kill it. The three Eva would combine forces, and if that didn't repel the Angel, nothing would.

Nozomi was already on the way again, headed across an ocean to pit her soul against the beast's, and I was meant to help her.

I put on footage from the last two battles, shut my eyes, and listened to Nozomi's voice. That steady cadence of hers—she could get tense, but never hurried. There was an even quality to her demeanor, even under pressure—somewhat like Ayanami, at least in that narrow respect. It was like work to her, wasn't it? She spoke the same way you would if you were lugging a wagon of paint cans around. Where do you need to go? Turn left? Turn right? Up that hill? Okay, let's get on with it. The weight isn't going anywhere by itself.

Why would you want to carry that weight?

Why did Nozomi want to carry that weight?

When the thought came to me, I swept the file folder aside, and the papers within scattered. I buried my face in my hands, and I sat there, for a time, rocking back and forth in my chair. The footage ran to the end of the video, leaving me with nothing but cold silence.

So at some point, I turned off the monitor and took a walk.

#

It was late on the base, but if you didn't know how the base worked, you might not have known it. The corridor lighting never dimmed, and there were guards posted at all times. You might notice fewer people moving through the halls, but only the civilian scientists on base kept to a daytime schedule.

Even that was…flexible, and not just when the Eva was in operation, either.

It might be tempting to think of Manoah Base as this giant, sprawling complex underground. Nerv Headquarters had over twenty stories above the Geofront floor and a few times that beneath the surface to Terminal Dogma. But that was then. In this day and age, with time limited and money hard to come by, Manoah Base had separate buildings with only a few floors. Getting around was like navigating a small hotel or apartment building—except the base was far more cramped than anything above-ground.

So, with the base as small as it was, it didn't take me long to get to the research labs.

The labs there were all hidden away, tucked behind numbered doors with only military-style paint to distinguish them. I tracked the numbers as I walked by: J-107, J-109, …

J-111. I tapped my key card on the reader, and it flashed: red and green, alternating.

Well it couldn't be that easy, could it. I sighed, and I knocked instead. The lock turned, and a bleary-eyed redhead peered out.

"Shinji?" She frowned, folding her arms. "Well look who it is."

I winced. "Uh, um, how's the work going?"

"It's not bad," she said with a shrug, but that momentary reprieve gave away to a hard stare. "I've been working. Unlike some people."

I laughed nervously, and I looked around her into the lab. There was a cubicle in plain view, but no one was at home. "Should I…?"

She propped the door open and jerked her head toward the interior. I followed her in.

Asuka blew right by the office space, showing me through an open door into the laboratory proper: a series of chambers with transparent walls, connected by a narrow observation hallway. Asuka dragged a rolling chair from one of the consoles and sat down at another, leaving me to sit in front of a powered-down computer while she went back to work.

And what was she working on, you ask? An unholy mass of flesh and cabling—no more than an Eva's torso being kept alive by machines.

Asuka tugged on her labcoat's collar as she sat down, and she typed in her credentials to access the console computer. "So, what made you come back?"

"It's important to Nozomi, and it's important to me," I said.

"And you just decided to show up here? All of a sudden?"

"I'm sorry. I'll make you some sausage."

She looked at me with one eye. "Real sausage or Chinese sausage?"

It wasn't like you could just go to any market in Japan and find pig intestines. Not in that time, anyway.

"That's what I thought," she said, but her lip curled up in a smile. "So you're okay with Nozomi now?"

I nodded. "She was…pretty forgiving. We're going to fight the Angel again, soon."

"You're ready for that?"

"I need to be."

Asuka pushed the keyboard aside, and she turned her chair toward me, letting it drift to a stop. "You need to be, huh?" she said, looking up. "Well, damn right you do. You two kill the Angel and save the world. That's what we're here for. What's the problem?"

Inside the test chamber, some bubbles passed through a transparent tube, into the simulation body.

"It's not going to be easy," I said. "Not for her, not for me."

"Of course it won't be easy. She's going to suffer. A lot. But it'll help more people avoid that suffering. It's a win."

"And what should she do after that?" I asked.

Asuka laughed. She sat back in her chair, with one leg crossed over the other, and shook her head. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Ikari. It's far too early to worry about what might happen if you win when she might not survive at all."

I tensed up. "What?"

"It's natural, isn't it? There's no small chance that she dies, or that she doesn't come back as something human, or the like."

"That—" I bit my lip and shuddered.

"Shinji…"

Asuka reached out to me, but I waved her off.

" _That_ is what I'm afraid of," I said. "How—how am I supposed to stop that from happening?"

"You might not be able to. It could be it was never possible." She shrugged. "So why worry about it? Just do what you can."

"But I can't!" I cried. "I—I don't understand her! How can I? I don't know anything about art, which she loves. I don't understand why she's so cold to Horaki; I don't know how she stays so cool under pressure. I just—I don't know!" I buried my face in my hands. "Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't care about anything, and she's just going along because we asked her to. How am I supposed to help that?"

Asuka pulled on the back of my chair, drawing us closer, and she wrapped an arm around me. "Do you understand _me_ , Shinji?"

"A lot more than I did—"

She locked her eyes on me. "Do you _understand_ me, Shinji? Completely, utterly, truly, without a shadow of a doubt?"

My mouth hung open, and I didn't answer.

"I don't understand you either, sometimes," she said, her eyes drifting to the half-formed creature through the window. "You sat around and moped and I couldn't reach you. That's like stabbing me in the heart, you know. That fucking hurts. What a bastard you are."

"I'm sorry; I just—"

She touched a finger to my lips. "But we're both bastards, so I can decide if I want to live with that." She smiled. "And we've been just fine, even if it does hurt sometimes."

I relaxed at that, settling into Asuka's arms. "I really do owe you some sausage."

"Misato has connections; get her to make it happen."

"I'd rather do it myself."

"I won't stop you." Asuka pulled on her labcoat with her free hand, closing it up against the lab environment. With a blank expression, she stared into the chamber.

"How's work coming?" I asked.

She jolted a bit, even though she was still holding on to me, but a trademark grin came back to her. "Good!" she said. "We've been using the simulation body to probe the effects of the engine. It's not perfect, but the results are promising. We could be installing it in the Eva within a few weeks."

"How does it work?"

She scoffed. "Do you really want to hear it?"

"Humor me."

"You'll still owe me some sausage."

"That's fine."

Asuka caught a lab notebook on the console with her fingertips, and she flipped it open to some arcane drawings of occult, paranormal rituals—metaphysical biology at its most complex.

"Eva, Angels, and humans alike all generate AT fields and use their AT fields to penetrate other AT fields, if they're forceful enough." She said this like a professor at a classroom lectern. "But it doesn't need to be that way, does it? AT fields are fields—wavelike phenomena that obey the laws of quantum mechanics. Rather than overpower an AT field directly, an opposing field of the right amplitude and phase will cause destructive interference with the first field, completely canceling the other out. That's what the puncture engine does—or that's what it's supposed to do, anyway. The reality of making that work from inside an Eva takes a rather ingenious solution that Maya doesn't entirely appreciate…"

As Asuka explained all the cleverness of her approach, we sat in the lab, side by side, long into the night.

And though the simulation body behind the glass was hideous, neither of us wanted to move.

#

The battle took place late the next night.

I reported to the control room around eleven, just as final operations were underway to prepare for launch and combat. Misato's staff kept a close eye on the situation on the ground, and it wasn't good: Unit-16, the American Eva, had led a morning-long defensive stand outside the old Nerv-Boston base. When I arrived, the beast already seemed tired, breathing heavily as it waited for its instructions. Its blue-and-white striped armor showed the signs of battle: chips and dents marred the color scheme, and its left shoulder pylon had snapped in two.

You see, Unit-16 had squared off against the Angel with no support and no help since dawn. American tanks and missiles? They hardly made a dent. Their rods of death from high orbit? Useless. How do you expect to hit a moving target from a dozen kilometers away, with nothing but tiny fins attached to a dumb metal rod?

That's not to say the Americans didn't try it anyway. No, the charred craters and smoke in the sky said so: the Americans would try, even if they had no chance to succeed. Why not? If it distracted the Angel for a minute or two, if it kept the walking creatures' advance from the American base a little longer, then why not? What was a little metal in payment for that? What was a little fire to scorch the trees and homes for kilometers around?

But Unit-16 couldn't hold forever, nor did it need to. The Germans and the Japanese were on the way, and we would all face the enemy—together.

"All right, we're _go_ for launch," said Hyuga, standing at his position next to me. "Start the clock at T-8 when Eva-15 has deployed."

The middle screen at the front of the room went to one of the transport planes. The jet seemed like a lumbering animal, lugging Unit-15 on its back, for the clouds behind it hardly drifted by. On another screen was Unit-14, also hitching a ride, and on my own monitor was the camera into the entry plug. Nozomi sat with her eyes closed, and she tapped her thumb on the controls as she waited.

"You're not scared," I observed.

She opened one eye, the one visible to the camera. "You kidding? This is pretty weird stuff we get into. I think most people should be scared."

"You don't show it very much, I mean."

She closed her eyes again, shrugging. "Nothing I can do about it."

"That's no less worthy of admiration. You didn't have to be here."

"Pft." She snorted. "This is what anybody should do."

"Maybe."

I glanced over my shoulder. Just as before, the Horaki family waited in the observation lounge, taking up the two corner seats while generals and politicians alike watched with stiff, stern faces.

"Have you thought about talking to your sister?" I asked.

"Dunno what I could say." Her thumb tapped on the controls, never missing a beat. "It's hard, you know?"

"That I do know," I said, laughing to myself. "We can talk about it when you get back, yeah?"

"Getting a little ahead of yourself, Ikari," she said, stifling a smile.

"I'm not. This is something I know."

She nodded at that, and she said nothing more. Her eyes were fixed forward. She settled into the zone, focusing on the timer.

I glanced up, above the projector screens in the front of the room. The clock on the wall read _-00:00:08.000_ and held there, as the Germans on the radio read the time down for their launch. " _Drei, zwo, eins…_ "

The German Eva separated from its transport, which pitched down and out of the way, and a wing apparatus folded out along the Eva's arms, letting it glide into the battlefield.

"Start the clock!" said Hyuga.

Nozomi tightened her grip on the controls, and I sat up, too. It was what she'd trained to do, right? And for me? It's what I'd been asked to do, despite having little training at all. I only knew what it was like to be in that chair. The one I was sitting in then—with foam cushions and a rolling wheels—was a far cry from the hard plastic plug seat.

So it would've been weird to be less comfortable in that chair than the Eva's. It would've been very weird. I don't think you could blame the armrests for that, and yet…I squirmed in that chair. I squirmed and repositioned myself for the whole countdown. Nozomi separated from the transport and jolted, and there I was, struggling with the rolling wheels of my chair. She swayed and bounced around as turbulence shook the Eva's improvised gliding rig, and I? I fiddled with the height adjuster on my seat, but it wouldn't put me in a good spot. It was always too high or too low, too cramped with the keyboard or too far above the monitor to see properly.

And that was how it was.

I gave up trying to adjust the chair. The keyboard would just have to be inconvenient. Nothing could keep me from watching Nozomi as she flew toward battle.

And that battle was underway. The Angel—that impossible ball of spinning rings and warped space—chewed through American tanks on its way to their base. It sucked in fighter jets and strung out their metal and glass into streams of crushed white mass, spitting them out like strands of steel spaghetti.

And when Eva-16, in white and blue, dared to stand toe-to-toe against its foe, the Angel pulled the Eva off the ground by the pull of false gravity. It tossed the Eva aside like a doll. An Eva isn't meant to plow into the ground or smash into the ocean like a stone. Even with the most intrepid pilot, it couldn't help but wear down.

That's why Eva-15 came to its aid.

Ka-WHAM! A streak of red, black, and white smashed into the Angel! AT fields burst from the impact in shimmering red and orange light; Eva-15's momentum carried the Angel along with it, dragging the Angel from the American Eva.

And that's where Unit-14 and Nozomi swooped in, making a graceful, rocket-assisted landing at the American Eva's side.

"I'm good!" cried Nozomi, striking a combat-ready stance.

"Qanan Base, Qanan Base, this is Manoah Base Control," said one of our communication controllers in English. "Eva Unit-14 is in position."

With that, the battered American Eva withdrew. Bits and pieces of armor sloughed off like necrotic flesh, and the Eva lumbered inland, stepping over a swath of barbed wire fencing.

But the Angel gave chase. It rose high off the ground, carrying the German Eva long by false gravity, and it bolted for the American Eva and base. The ground split apart beneath the Angel's trail.

TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK! Sparks shot off the Angel's AT field. White beams of energy sliced through the air, leaving shimmering wakes of heat and smoke behind.

"You think I got its attention?"

That was Nozomi, who crouched her Eva like a soldier providing covering fire, except her rifle wasn't anything a human being could wield. Calling it the _Type 21 Positron Rifle_ would make it sound complicated and strange.

It fired bolts of high-energy particles, going just shy of the speed of light. It _was_ complicated and strange.

Yet limitless in ammunition it was not—Nozomi fired off a burst of three shots, stunning the Angel, but the trigger clicked harmlessly after that.

And that's when the Angel—that swirling ball of light with semi-transparent, crystalline rings—focused its energy on Nozomi. It froze her within a spotlight once more. Nozomi let out a stifled groan, and she pressed a hand to her head, gritting her teeth.

"Nothing has changed."

That was the specter—the thing that looked like my father—looming over my station with cold, wide eyes. The rims of "his" glasses cut across his pupils; the red lenses stood in stark contrast against the whites of his eyes.

"You're still helpless," he said. "Helpless to change the present or the past."

I sat back in my chair, sipped my flavorless tea, and smiled. "Not this time," I said, and I pressed the switch on my headset's cord. "Nozomi, fire when ready."

"Okay…" she grunted. "Firing…"

The specter's brow furrowed, and behind him, on the front projector screen, the Eva's back end lit with fire. Rockets hurled the Eva free of the Angel's spotlight, and Nozomi zoomed around the Angel, reloading the positron rifle on the fly. In the entry plug, she lowered the targeting scanner back over her eyes, took aim, and—

FWOOM! The Angel shot past her with criminal disregard for the laws of inertia, and its spinning gravitational wake carried Nozomi and the American Eva along, as though they were helpless asteroids in the presence of a larger body. Nozomi tumbled; her rockets fired in spurts, pushing the Eva end-over-end. She lurched against her seat restraints, and the targeting scanner smashed into her temple, drawing blood.

"Okay, that didn't work!" cried Nozomi, who pushed and pulled at the Eva's controls, to no avail. "Do we have a plan to get me out of this thing's pull or what?"

Hyuga grimaced, and he put a hand over his headset microphone, saying to me, "Tell her we have something; it'll just take a second."

I clicked the switch on my microphone, and I said, "We're putting something together right now."

"Is that coming? Soon?"

I nodded frantically. "Yes, soon! Very soon!"

But that wasn't soon enough. The Angel darted skyward, dragging the three Eva along, and it flung them back downward like pellets from a slingshot.

THUD, THUD, THUD! They smashed into the ground, taking trees and fencing along with them. And where the wounded beasts lay in craters, the enemy army—the faceless walking creatures—came for them like vultures sniffing carrion. The walkers pricked and pulled at each Eva's armor, puncturing the metal plates with their needle-like fingers.

THWACK! Unit-14 swatted two of the creatures with its arm, leaving nothing but orange goo in their place.

"Not soon enough, Ikari," muttered Nozomi, who brought the Eva lumbering to its feet.

I looked to Hyuga. "We'll try to do better next time," I said.

"You do that," said Nozomi.

Hyuga grimaced. "What else can we do?" he asked the room.

I faced the monitor once more, saying nothing.

The scene there wasn't improving, though. The Angel descended back to Earth like a god from heaven. It shined its searing light on the other Eva—first the lanky German Eva in red and orange, then the shorter American Eva in blue and white stripes. The light never lingered on them for long, however.

It only stayed for more than a few seconds when it found Unit-14 and Nozomi.

"How about now?" she said, straining against the light's pressure. "We got a new plan for this or what?"

Hyuga looked to me and nodded, and I said, "Yes, it'll just be a minute."

One of the controllers rose from her seat. "Not enough propellant," she said. "The engines will fizzle out before we get even 90 degrees around, and the Angel will just reacquire the Eva in its gaze."

"ETA on the backup rifle?" asked Hyuga.

"Four minutes, Ops—the platform couldn't stay on station with the Angel in the air."

"How much propellant do we have?"

"Fifteen seconds at full burn, sir."

On and on the dialogue went. That's what adults do; they work on things. Ibuki and her scientists were working on it in the back room, no doubt, with Asuka and a small handful of their colleagues relaying information back to them by the second. The technicians and systems controllers were working on it, with people going back and forth between stations. Hyuga left his station, holding his headset by its cord, as he spoke with the technicians about a solution.

And Misato? She presided over the whole affair in silence, not even looking up from her monitors.

"Ikari?"

That was Nozomi. She held the Eva's arms in front of her, as though blocking a little of that light would protect her. With the Eva paralyzed and Nozomi struggling against the pain, the walkers climbed up the Eva's legs and back, ripping at its armor. Nozomi clenched her teeth so hard I thought they would crack.

"Haven't you got something for me?" she cried out. "I'm not gonna let this thing just push into me without putting up a fight!"

Hyuga stormed back to his position next to me. "She needs to just hang on."

"Just hold on a little longer," I said.

She hissed, shaking her head. "Hold on for what, Ikari? How long do you guys think I have?"

"I know this is frustrating; I know it's hard to hear that we don't have any answers for you. I—" I ran my hand through my hair. "I'm sorry. I know we asked you to do this, and now we're asking you to sit out there and wait to be hurt or killed. I know it's awful. I don't know what else to tell you."

"That's really how it is?"

I bowed my head. "Yeah, it is. I'm sorry."

Nozomi grunted, and she made a show of releasing the controls. She looked right at the camera, with one eye shut and the other straining to stay open, and said,

"You don't have to apologize, Ikari. That's for trying. I'm glad you've been here."

"You are?"

"Yeah," she said, flashing her trademark small smile. "Thanks for looking out for me."

The Eva shuddered, and Nozomi grabbed at the base of the seat to steady herself.

"But if you can figure something out pretty soon, that'd be okay, too!" she said, and she flashed the camera a pained smile.

I sat back in my seat, mouth hanging open. There was that girl, mustering all the will she had to hold the Angel's probing mind at bay, and she had the temerity to smile, to announce to the world that she was there to save it, knowing what it might cost her. And she would do this, had done all this, with little more than an indifferent shrug, as though she could agree to it and go back to sketching on her pad without a second thought.

That was Nozomi Horaki.

I knew what it was like to sit in that chair, to fight Angels and hope for something more.

I didn't know that girl just by virtue of her sitting in that chair, but I knew something that could help her.

I could help her.

I, of all people, could help her.

And as Nozomi groaned and gritted her teeth, my eyes lost focus. I saw, in the glossy sheen of the monitor, not Nozomi.

I saw a boy, a boy who'd grown halfway into a man, who grew stubble when it suited him and shaved it off when it felt unfitting.

I saw a boy, a boy who'd grown the chin and nose of his father, yet who shied away from the image of that man, even as that image stared him down.

"Your flesh is helpless," said the image. "It is weak and prone to fear and doubt. You are a mistake. You cannot fight the nature of what you are."

My eyes flickered to that image, to the ghostly, twisted image of my father. But that _thing_ was not my father.

Perhaps that's why I could stand up to it.

Yes, that's right. I stood up, and I looked that thing right in the eye.

"I may have been a mistake before," I said, "but I am not a mistake now!"

The room stared at me—the thing that looked like my father, the other mission controllers, and Misato alike. But I ignored them. I tightened my headset over my ears, and I hit the switch to transmit.

"Nozomi, we're gonna get you out of this," I said.

"You are? How?"

"We're gonna find a way, and you're going to get out of this. You're going to get out of this because _you're_ the one sitting in that chair, and you can do it." I balled my hand into a fist. "Isn't that right?"

She looked aside, into the light, and for the first time, it didn't seem to pain her.

"Damn right we are. What's the plan?"

I took my hand off the transmit switch and leaned around the cubicle wall. "Do we have a plan yet?" I asked Hyuga. "Do we?"

"Yes!" Hyuga came around to my station with a tablet, drawing out the strategy. "This is the plan: fire the rockets as long as they can go, keep her on a straight line, and—"

He drew a single path from the ground to the center of a circle.

I scoffed. "Are you serious?"

"She needs her knife."

He was serious!

I rubbed my forehead and shook my head. I looked to Misato, but she just nodded once, not even moving from her seat.

I let out a breath, and I switched on the transmitter once more. "Okay, Nozomi," I said. "We're going for the kill. Draw your prog knife. Hyuga will have your boosters fire on a countdown. Just keep the Eva steady and go straight into the heart of that Angel. Do you understand?"

Hyuga covered his microphone. "With the rings, the frame dragging…" He shrugged. "It's the best we can do."

"We don't have anything else for you. It might not work, and you could be killed. I'm sorry."

"Do _you_ think it'll work?" she asked.

I sighed, watching the battle on the large screen at the front of the room. The walkers had wrenched off one of Unit-14's leg armor plates. The German Eva was trying desperately to keep the Americans' protected, as warped space flung trees, tanks, and unspent artillery shells in their direction.

"We're gonna make it work."

Nozomi smiled at that, and she gripped the controls. "All right. Just say when."

Hyuga held up five fingers.

"Draw your knife," I said. "Five."

The knife popped out of Unit-14's right shoulder pylon, and the Eva drew it cleanly.

"Four, three…"

The rockets flickered to life, burning one of the walkers and shooting it away.

"Two, one…"

The Eva crouched slightly, and—

"Go!"

It jumped!

PAAAAM! The rockets fired, and the Eva shot down the center of the spotlight.

"Stay like that," I said. "Ah—watch it, you're drifting!"

Unit-14's right leg swung off to the side, countering the Angel's spin and keeping Nozomi on line. That left just one big obstacle:

"Dodge the rings!" I cried. "Throttle down and dodge!"

Nozomi cut the power and contorted the Angel's body, dancing around the outer ring like a gymnast, but the second, inner ring—spinning vertically—clipped the Eva's foot.

"AGH!" she yelped, and she bit down so hard her lip bled.

"Stay with it!" I shouted. "You're close!" I covered the microphone and looked to Hyuga. "Don't lower her rates!"

"We're leaving them!" he said, raising both hands and backing off.

That was good, but the Eva had started tumbling back to Earth.

"You can do this!" I said. "It's not your body, but you're in control of it! Get it under control and finish this!"

The Eva steadied itself in midair like a skydiver, and the rockets fired again. The Angel shot skyward, but Nozomi gave chase, leading with the tip of the prog knife as she disappeared into the blinding white light, the glow around the Angel's core.

And in that glow, the Eva disappeared; the entry plug feed pixellated and turned to blank, solid blue.

"Nozomi!" I shouted, pressing a headset speaker to my ear. "Can you hear me? Nozomi!"

And then there was light.

Brilliant, blinding light overloaded every screen, with only the silhouettes of rings flying off in all directions to punctuate the whiteness.

"Nozomi? Do you read me?"

There was a burst of static over the radio. An image flickered into place on my monitor: it was still pixellated and blocky, but the entry plug was intact, and Nozomi, limp in her seat, cast a weak, lazy eye toward the camera.

"Did we get it?" she mumbled.

The light on the main screen cleared. The overhead view showed a crater where the battle had taken place, with Unit-14 thrown clear by about half a kilometer, into some flattened woods. The creatures on the ground? They were in retreat, and they disappeared into the sea, not to be seen again, at least not that day.

"Yeah," I said with a smile. I turned to the observation balcony and showed Horaki and her sister a thumbs-up, and the girls hugged each other right then and there. "You got it, Nozomi."

"No, that's not—" She pulled herself upright, fumbling for grip in the darkened entry plug. "That's not what I said. _We_ got it."

I grinned. I grinned like a silly child. "Yeah. We got it."

"You bet we did. And Ikari?"

"Yes?"

"I don't know what you were like before," she said, "but it wouldn't be so bad, to end up like you."

I laughed at that, and I dabbed at my eye. "Thank you."

"Welcome. Now, can I come home?"

I glanced over my shoulder to Misato, who sat back in her seat, sipping her coffee with a satisfied grin. She nodded at me and raised her cup.

And I couldn't help but smile, too.

"Yeah, Nozomi," I said. "Come home. Your friends and family are waiting."


	5. Ground Zero

**Ground Zero**  
 _Chapter Five_

With the Angel dead, we relaxed for a time. The alien creatures were still out there, still a threat, but without the Angel's protection, they were little more than durable animals. They could get up from spectacular damage, but for each of them on Earth, there were hundreds of bullets primed and ready to fight them off.

So for a time, a short time, we let ourselves enjoy our victory.

After that…

#

"Eva-14, three targets incoming! Defend!"

The Eva scrambled behind an eight-story building, and a group of spiked orbs ground into the glass, plaster, and metal beams inside. The spiked orbs shot out from the impact craters and headed back where they came:

To a translucent, spider-like Angel, with dozens more orbs whirling around it in an impenetrable shell.

And then five of those orbs froze in place.

I jammed the switch on my headset microphone. "Positron Rifle ready!" I cried. "Prepare to fire!"

The Eva raised the weapon's sights to its eye. It braced itself against the crippled building.

"Fire!"

Unit-14 spun around the building corner, and five dazzling shots rang out like lightning bolts. They blinded the close-in camera; only the alternate, wide-shot feed showed the bolts cutting through the Angel's orbs. One, two, three, and four disintegrated, but the last shot grazed its target, which barreled toward the Eva, and—

The spiked orb stuck through the Eva's chest.

"Wow," said the girl beside me. "That's gotta sting a little." She leaned forward, placing her elbow on top of a blank, unruled page of a pad, and she pressed her thumb on her headset's transmit switch. "Hey, Sasaki—how does that feel?"

"Not too good." A boy with a bowl cut and sandy blond hair stared back at Nozomi through the monitor. He looked back at Nozomi with a sickly, pained gaze—and then he gaped. "Horaki…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you have your feet on the table?"

Nozomi sat with her bare feet on the corner of the cubicle's table. She wiggled her toes and said,

"Nope."

Our downtime was over. There were more enemies coming. It was only a matter of time, and not a day went by without more training exercises. It wasn't just Nozomi, either: Sasaki was but one of the other pilot candidates. Nozomi's battle experience was valuable—when she wasn't goofing around, anyway.

"All right, enough of that," I said. "Sasaki, you need to stay steady through that last shot. Angels are moving targets. They won't stay still for you."

"Okay, okay, I got it."

"And you've gotta adjust for the recoil," said Nozomi. "It's not a lot, but where does it tend to drift?"

"To the right," said Sasaki.

"To the right," said Nozomi. "So go take care of it, yeah?"

Sasaki looked ahead, forward in the entry plug and away from us. "Okay," he said. "I'll try to take care of it."

I moused over to an interface control panel on one of my monitors. "I'm going to start it again," I told him.

"All right. I'll do what I can." He tightened his grip on the Eva controls. "Ready."

I hit _enter_ , and the Angel disappeared. The building morphed back into working order, and Unit-14 rematerialized half a kilometer across the battlefield.

"Again," I said. "Go!"

The Eva trotted across the pixellated, polygonal landscape. Rifle in hand, it peered around buildings and scanned the hills.

Nozomi took her headset off partway, and though she was leaning back, she started sketching on her pad. "Who's next? Terada?"

I nodded. "Terada. If he shows."

"He'd better. He's not gonna say he'll _try_ to take care of the recoil."

"Tell his father that."

"Oh, I did."

I stared. "You did what?"

"I talked with his dad." Nozomi kept sketching. "Nice guy. Too bad he's a moron."

"You can't make people give up their children for this."

"No, you can't make people do the right thing, or the smart thing." She gestured with her pencil's eraser at the screen. "That's why this is a waste of time."

"You want to take care of this all by yourself?"

"Yeah?" she said with a shrug. "You think you can train someone like _him_?"

I sighed. "I don't know."

"You don't know very much, do you, Ikari?"

"I know my top pilot has a tongue as sharp as her pencil."

"Ooh, nice." Nozomi nodded in approval. "You're getting up to my speed, Ikari."

I shot her a look, but Nozomi didn't even bother to look back. She just smiled to herself and kept drawing new lines on her sketchpad, as though nothing in the world could be wrong.

That was a far cry from what was happening on the monitor. Sasaki and Eva-14 destroyed three of five targets—so Eva-14 limped away with spiked orbs through its chest and right leg.

"Sasaki, recoil," I said.

"Yeah, I know about the recoil! I just…" He threw the controls aside and hissed. "It's not so easy, you know!"

Nozomi put her pencil down and refit her headset speaker over her ear. "Not so easy? You don't say."

Sasaki looked aside, bowing his head. "Sorry, Horaki. Three mils on the scope, right?"

"Five for a rapid shot like that one."

"Five mils. Five. Okay." Sasaki nodded, and he gripped the controls once more. "Again, Ikari?"

The clock on the wall ticked the seconds by: a seven-segment display, showing twenty minutes to noon.

Twenty minutes to noon on 9/29.

"Why don't we take a break for lunch?" I said.

Sasaki was already halfway out of his seat restraints by the time the Angel and the landscape disintegrated into pixels and wireframed polygons. I started putting the console into standby mode, but Nozomi said,

"Hey, tell your lunch date Hikari wants to game store tomorrow."

I scoffed. "Why? Is there something new?"

Nozomi shrugged, all while working her pencil across the sketchpad. "Beats me. And remember, we've got a date, too."

"We do?"

Only that got Nozomi's eyes to leave the sketchpad. Two raised eyebrows told me uncertainty wasn't the right answer.

"All right, all right!" I said, laughing nervously. "What do I need? A sketchpad? Pencils? Erasers?"

"Stuff you're gonna find will be crap. I'll take care of the supplies. You just focus on what's important."

I pressed two fingers to my temple. "I'm not creative. I'm not an artist. The best I could do is go through the motions."

"It's not about being creative. Just try to capture something—something you think matters."

"How would I know what that is?"

She scoffed and shook her head. "You're better at that than you think, you know?"

I laughed, more to myself than to anyone else, and I gave her a short bow. "See you in a bit."

"Mm-hmm." She shot me a sidelong glance, picked up her pencil again, and started sketching again, feet still curled over the edge of the console's table. Hyuga would surely have something to say about that.

With that thought in mind, I left—at nineteen minutes to noon.

Nineteen minutes to noon on 9/29.

To that point, that day had been typical of most days since the Angel's death. There was a great deal of time spent training—training Nozomi, as the primary pilot, or training the small handful of backup pilots should she falter. And there was something out there. The largest telescopes on Earth were watching.

But for all that training, things had relaxed a bit on base. The control room was recording our training sessions, yes, but most of the staff had other duties to attend to. Not knowing when and where the enemy would return, it was natural—maybe inevitable—that we would settle into a pattern.

And I wasn't immune to that. Once a week, I would head out to lunch, leaving by way of the underground train. The blast door in the train tunnel would open every half hour for people to go back to National Square.

The train ride was uneventful, I was back in the square in short order; the only holdup was the guards wouldn't let us leave all at once, lest we attract attention.

It was a sunny day, so there were a lot of people out and about. The square was packed, bustling, lively. It's natural that there would be a lot of people there. It's a natural thing that anyone would've expected.

Most of all at five minutes to noon on 9/29.

I found my date by the trees at square's edge. She'd already claimed a stone table there, in the shadows where fewer people would notice us. I'd made the lunches, but she'd laid them out for both of us to eat. I remember she was too, too beautiful that day—in a tight red, buttoned shirt that didn't seem safe to wear around chemicals or corrosive fluids, but her labcoat wasn't far from her: a spare coat stuck out of her bag, though you might not have known it by just the small patch of cloth you could see.

"Your friends are back," she said, grinning, and she jerked her head toward the creek.

Sure enough, my "friends" were walking about the edge of the water: two geese and a group of goslings. I fished through our bag and pulled out a bag of seeds.

"Here you go," I said softly. "Come on!"

Most of the birds went after only the furthest flung seeds, but one gosling trotted up, closer to us, with one of the adults shadowing it from a short distance.

"Aren't they cute?" I said, beaming, and I offered the seed pouch to Asuka. "Come on, try it—just this once?"

She shook her head. "Birds really aren't my thing, unless they're on a plate."

"Asuka!"

"I'm serious! They smell; they make these terrible noises—" She put her water bottle down, watching me with both eyes. "Be careful, Shinji, or she might sucker you into taking her in."

"The gosling? The little goose?" I scoffed. "How do you even know it's a girl?"

She eyed the gosling carefully, as though it were a snake waiting to strike instead of a small goose trying to pick up seeds off the ground.

"Intuition," said Asuka, not even breaking her glare.

I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. "Well, I think it's cute. What if I did want to take one in?"

At that, Asuka smiled slyly. "I'm not saying I oppose it categorically. I'm just saying if I were to allow such a thing, I expect…consideration."

"What—what kind of consideration?"

"Hm, maybe a real bed? Human beings were not made to sleep less than ten centimeters off the ground!"

"We've slept on the ground for at least ten thousand years!"

"And how many of those years did we actually have sausage, hm?" Asuka picked through her boxed lunch and munched on a piece of radish. "We were goddamn barbarians ten thousand years ago, and you know it! A civilization without real sausage or proper beds? Goddamn barbarians."

"I have real sausage for you, dear."

She grinned. "Like I said: goddamn barbarian."

I reached across the table and grabbed the corner of her boxed lunch. "That's right; I'm a barbarian, and if our kind of sausage isn't good enough for you, I'll just have some more."

She pulled back, wide-eyed. "Let—let's not be hasty here! Shinji!"

"Oh, no, it's the food of barbarians. It must not be worthy of you; I'll take care of it."

"No, it's mine!"

"Mine!"

Back and forth the box went, and in all that chaos, my elbow toppled Asuka's water bottle, drenching her from the waist down.

"Ah—" I stood there, frozen, staring, but Asuka?

She laughed.

"Well, I guess we both got a little carried away there," she said, pulling up her soaked pants from her skin. "We're gonna need some towels."

I overturned our bag for the lunches; there were some recycled paper napkins, but not nearly enough to deal with this mess.

Asuka rose, drying herself off as best she could. "I'll go to the cafe and get some more napkins. Stay here and watch our stuff? Play with the goslings; they're bound to leave town soon, right?"

I shook my head. "Asuka—everyone's going to notice you."

"As they should."

"I've got my glasses."

"Like that makes a difference when you have to push your way through the Diet cafe!"

I pulled out a pair of sunglasses and pulled the blue hood of my sweatshirt over my head, and I rose to go, but I gave her one more look.

"All right," she said with a sigh. "Sorry about this."

"It's okay. Just feed the gosling a little, won't you?"

Asuka nodded, and she dragged the seed pouch to her side of the table. She took a handful of seeds and tossed them—far, far from the table, so the nearby gosling and its parent trotted toward the creek again.

"And how's your gosling doing, anyway?" she asked.

"She's fine. She says you have to go to a game shop tomorrow?"

"Ah!" Asuka snapped her fingers. "They must have some used Vita games in. Awesome!"

Asuka threw another handful of seeds toward the geese, this time with a higher arc and wider spray, and I let her be with the geese. That one little gosling that stopped by? It watched me go for a while, only turning around when one of the parents herded it back to the rest of the group.

I think it's nice we could worry about such trivial things: about fighting over food for laughs, or taking care of some wild geese that probably wouldn't stick around later in the year, or the like.

You see, even though we knew more Angels would come, I think we were optimistic. We believed we would win. We had the Eva on our side. We had Misato and her vast expertise. And the Angels—they'd have to come to our world, beat our might and ingenuity with no place of respite to retreat to.

And we had Ayanami on our side. Ayanami, who watched over us.

Ayanami, who stared at us from a distance.

Ayanami, who stared at me right then.

Ayanami, who stared at me at one minute to noon on 9/29.

At one minute to noon on 9/29, with the wind rustling in the trees, the geese took flight and cried out for all their kin to follow.

Ayanami, of course, was ummoved by all of this. She stood before the National Diet Building, right at the base of the steps. Her eyes bored into me, and her head moved, side to side, not more than a centimeter in either direction.

I scanned the square for—what? There were people _everywhere_. People in suits, ties, or hats. SDF officers milled about near the fountain, with a couple Americans tossing coins in. Capitol police manned the top step of the Diet building, with metal detectors and who even knew what else waiting to scan, poke, and prod anyone going inside.

I looked back to Asuka, who had just gone back to her lunch. Still, she was watching me, though. She must've noticed I was looking back, for she rose from her seat. Her red top shined in the sunlight, and—

EEEEEEEE!

The sound didn't even register to my ears. I felt it more than I heard it. Once the blast reached me, I didn't hear anything at all.

Not the chatter of people in the square.

Not the cries of birds that fled the scene.

I heard none of these things. Just high-pitched hiss in my ears.

I stood, arms crossed over my face, as the National Diet Building bled smoke and flame.

I stood there while a dozen others around me had been flattened and shoved to the concrete walk beneath us.

I stood there with a wake of white concrete behind me, while everything else in front and to the sides carried a dark film of smoke and soot.

Ayanami was gone, but I was there, you see?

I was there at noon on 9/29.

#

What I remember most about that day—about the first minute after the bombing—was the stillness.

My ears rang, drowning everything else out. Neither screams nor sirens reached me, so the scene there played out like a silent film.

Some people picked themselves up off the square's concrete surface, and they limped toward the nearest road. Others streamed out of the other buildings—the Defence Agency, the Public Safety Bureau, and the like. They formed a procession in neat, orderly lines, headed by their bosses, as though it were a mere evacuation drill.

"Shinji!"

Asuka grabbed me by the shoulders, and I jolted, heart racing.

"Are you hit?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No…"

"You sure?"

I nodded, and Asuka let out a breath. "Jeez, you scared me!" she said, laughing with relief. Her hands curled around my shoulders, but her eyes flickered past me, and she paled. "My God…"

Breaking away, Asuka laid down her bag and unzipped it, and she crouched next to a man not two meters away from me. The man was awake and wide-eyed. He was alive.

He had to be, for the blood was still pulsing out of his chest.

Asuka went to a knee and cradled the man's head. "Hello, sir? Sir? Are you with me?"

The man nodded weakly, and he coughed. Blood sputtered to his lips. "Not for much longer, maybe," he said.

"I wouldn't say that just yet!" Asuka ripped at his shirt, tearing off the buttons, and she flicked his tie aside. The wound was somewhere on his lower torso, but in the mess of blood, it was hard to make out the exact spot.

"Shinji, I need some cloth!"

I stared at that bloody mess. I felt my cheeks and my chest. I took a deep breath. The air went in an out. It wasn't even a struggle. It all happened without an ounce of effort.

"Shinji!"

"Hm? What?" I said.

"Cloth! We've got to stop the bleeding!"

I sat down next to the bag and fished through it for something, anything. The only thing it carried that was helpful? Asuka's white labcoat.

"Are you serious?" cried Asuka.

I balled up the labcoat and stuffed it back in the bag, and I yanked off my sweatshirt instead. Asuka pressed it against the man's wound, and the blood seeped into the green fabric, turning it a dark, sickly color.

"Agh," the man moaned. "It hurts…"

"It's gonna hurt until they can look at you," said Asuka. "You might still have some shrapnel inside, so try not to move, you understand?"

The man closed his eyes, nodding ever-so-slightly. "I guess I'm lucky it isn't worse…"

I took one of the water bottles out of the bag and offered the man a sip. "Lucky?" I said.

"Lilith must've been watching over me."

I drew the water bottle away, and I saw it: the man's silver necklace, shaped like half a face with a dark eye. You could go to the crater where Tokyo-3 used to be, and you'd see a face like that staring back at you from the water. The government let people camp out on the beach and hold rallies, distribute texts…

Or make necklaces.

"I could've been halfway up the Diet steps," the man went on, laughing to himself. "I dropped my briefcase on the way out of the train, and all my papers went everywhere. If not for that—"

"That was a coincidence," I said, dabbing at the man's mouth to take the blood away.

"Why do you say that?"

I caught the man's eye and stared him down. "Maybe Lilith was watching over someone, but it wasn't you. She let this happen. She let people do this. And you know what happened?"

"Shinji—" said Asuka.

"You can't see it right now," I said, gesturing to the rest of the square, "but there are a lot more people out here, and that's just who I can see—"

"Shinji!"

Asuka grabbed the water bottle in my hand, and her little finger came to rest over mine.

"Maybe you want to take it easy for a bit," Asuka said softly. That was a torture. With the hum in my ears, I could hardly be sure that's what she said at all, but the pained look on her face was clear enough.

I went aside, sat with my head down, and waited.

I waited for the police to arrive and secure the scene.

I waited for the paramedics to follow them and make their rounds—first to the critically wounded, then to those less injured, then to even Asuka and me, unharmed as we were. Even the two of us couldn't escape examination, couldn't escape their questions. "How close were you to the blast? Do you feel anything in your chest or airway?" You see, a blast can injure you without leaving a mark. The pressure can tear you up inside, and you might not even realize it.

Only after that were we allowed to leave the square. The police asked us questions, of course. Did we see anything? Anything out of the ordinary? I told them I was on my way to the cafe, and that I stopped for a moment because I thought I'd forgotten something. Nothing like Rei Ayanami could've appeared in front of me. That would just sound crazy and suspicious.

They let us go home after that. Of course, there was no easy way from the square at that point. The trains were closed, and the streets were jammed with patients still in need of triage. The police were kind enough to offer us a ride home, but we could've walked faster, really. Between the tents on the street for triage, the ambulance procession leaving the scene, and the two dozen police cars establishing a barricade around the square entrances, getting back home was no easy feat.

The first thing we did when we got home? We bagged up our clothes. I never got my sweatshirt back, but my undershirt bore spots from the man's coughs. Asuka had it worse: though she'd rolled up her sleeves, blood had found a way to her pants and the end of her shirt. All of it had to go.

"It's the one time maybe I should've worn a skirt to the lab, hm?" Asuka remarked.

"I guess." I took the bag and tossed my own clothes in as well.

Asuka shot me a sidelong glance. "Shinji."

"What?"

"I'm making dinner."

The bag slipped from my grasp. "You want to do what?"

"You heard what I said." Asuka was in her yellow pajamas by then, and she started tying an apron around her waist. "How does it look?"

"It looks fine. Now get the other apron; I'm helping."

"You are not!" She wagged a finger at me. "Sit down. Be a good boy."

I scoffed. "Am I a dog now?"

"That might be fun." Asuka smiled slyly, setting up behind the kitchen counter. "Come on. Put something on TV and relax."

I shook my head, pulling on my hair. "I _can't_ do that, Asuka. I—I just—I can't. Let me help with dinner."

Hands on her hips, Asuka looked me up and down. "All right," she said. "You can help. A little."

I helped a lot. I did want to eat well that night, after all. Teaching Asuka the finer points of cooking would take more time than that.

We did eat well, as well as we could in those days. Asuka didn't hesitate to break out the catfish fillet, and we made tempura. I tried to keep things simple for her: measuring ingredients, mixing up the tempura batter, and the like. Chemistry and cooking, I learned, aren't so different in that respect.

And it took over an hour. That was an hour spent worrying about cracking eggs and cutting the fish into evenly sized pieces—instead of worrying about anything else.

But those worries weren't far from our home, either. Once dinner was served, we turned on the TV to fill the apartment with some life, but as we scanned through the channels, we found images of the bombing, counts of casualties, and the like. Asuka didn't want to deal with that for very long, and she flipped through the channel list to find anything else to watch.

She skipped past an image of a triangle with five eyes.

"Wait!" I cried, and my chopsticks clattered down on my plate.

Asuka sighed, but she hit _down_ on the remote. The emblem returned to the screen, with a news anchor saying,

"…fighters have claimed responsibility for the attack, though these claims are uncomfirmed at this time. Nevertheless, the bombing has spurred increased pressure on the Chinese government to scour the unsecured, occupied territory of Myanmar for militant groups. Chinese president Chen Zhu issued remarks earlier today, downplaying the need for extra security…"

A round-faced man in a black suit stood before a podium, and as he spoke in Chinese, a translator said,

"The security situation in the Myanmar Territory is not ideal, but we are confident we can cleanse the region of these vile terrorists and alien worshippers who seek little more than destruction and nothingness." The general secretary shifted his weight, cleared his throat, and went on, saying, "Their ideas are repugnant and dangerous, and we will destroy these cretins and make their ideas die with them. We need no outside assistance to do this. Germany, Japan, and the United States should worry about their Evangelion units. After all, that's what they've trusted themselves with."

Asuka scoffed, and she hit the _mute_ button. "Yeah, right," she said, and she munched on a piece of fried fish. "If you were going to take care of it, you would've done it a long time ago." She hissed. "Can you believe those people? Idiots, right?"

I watched the TV screen as the Chinese president kept talking, even though I couldn't know what he was saying.

"Yeah," I said. "Unbelievable."

We went to bed soon after that. We didn't have much choice, really. All our work was still at the base, and while we could pass time by reading, making music, or the like, none of that really felt right.

But lying in bed with incessant buzzing in your ears? That wasn't a great idea, either. It left me staring at the ceiling, into the formless, shifting void of retinal cells misfiring. At least they were firing. At least I was still alive.

It's not enough to just be alive.

I got up. I slid out from under Asuka's arm. I felt the carpet between my toes. I put on a blue hooded sweatshirt and clipped my sunglasses to the collar. I headed downstairs, and when the security guard in the lobby asked where I was going, I said,

"To work. I had to leave some things with all the commotion today. Can't sleep. Might as well be productive."

The guard narrowed his eyes. "Be safe, sir."

I nodded and thanked him, and I went out. I caught a cab, and while the driver did a double-take at a boy in a hood and sunglasses, he shook off the surprise and asked me, "Where to?"

"Embassy Row," I said.

#

Embassy Row was one of those shiny new neighborhoods—a place all to itself, with the buildings and homes boasting expansive grounds. Even after old Tokyo was destroyed, Japan still desired prestige and respect from the international community. It offered vast tracts of land for foreign governments to use as they wished, and they took advantage. You could count on a formal party happening on Embassy Row every week, with suits and ties, alcohol dating back no less than a hundred years, and hors d'ourves enough to feed a homeless man for two months straight.

And that hadn't changed after Third Impact, either. Though property was widely available, the reconstituted government was quick to kick out squatters in ambassadorial residences. Those houses' gates never went long without a new paint job, and an army of groundskeepers worked those lawns and gardens as though the fate of the world rested on trimming a few ill-behaved bonsai.

The Chinese ambassador's residence was no different than the others in this respect. The pool on the side of the house was a favorite gathering spot during his parties, but it was cramped and dangerous. A drunk Argentine diplomat had once knocked Asuka into the pool because there wasn't enough space to walk around. But the ambassador was very fond of that pool, enough to keep it well lit even in the dead of night.

It was by those cool blue lights that I found my way to the residence's gate, and I rang the buzzer inside the corner of the surrounding stone wall.

"Yes?" said the voice on the other end.

"I'd like to speak with the ambassador, please."

"…it's midnight, sir."

"I know that. With as much as I had to pay the cab, you'd think I'd know that, right?"

"The ambassador is unavailable," said the voice on the other end of the line.

I hunted around the gate's entranceway. There was a dark, glassy dome at the top. I looked right at it, took off my hood and sunglasses, and said,

"Do you know who I am?"

"…the ambassador is _still_ unavailable. If you would like to speak with him, you can make an appointment with his secretary. Office hours are 0700 to 1900—"

"I don't want an appointment in the morning!" I slammed the side of my fist on the archway. "I want one now!"

Silence. The red light on the intercom panel turned on as I pressed the button, but there was no answer.

"Hello?"

No answer.

"Hello!"

No answer. Not a light came on in the house. I was just left there, at the gate, with impassable silence. I wasn't even worth the breath of someone to argue against me.

"Hey!" I yelled, and I kicked the gate. "You can't do this! You murderers! Come out and face me! Come out and face the people you've killed!"

A pair of lights came on behind me, and a car pulled up to the curb. Two figures got out of the car; they pinned me down with flashlights, and a lightbar painted the street in a red strobe effect.

"What's the problem here?" said one of the officers.

I brushed a couple stray hairs from my face, standing straight and tall. "I'm here to speak with the ambassador."

The officer and his partner looked at each other, and the second officer said, "Do you have business with him? At this hour?"

"I do. It's urgent business."

"What business is that?" she asked.

I pointed through the gate. "I need to talk to him about the people he's killed!"

"Ikari, would you come with us, please?" The first officer lowered his flashlight, letting me see his face. "We'll give you a ride home."

I shook my head, and I faced the gate once more. The gate itself was wrought iron, and along the top of the stone wall and the gate itself, there were no defensive measures—no razor wire, nothing. Crossbars on the gate were obvious points to make a foothold.

I grabbed one of the bars and climbed.

"Ikari, stop!" cried the female officer. "If you continue, you'll be trespassing on property of the Chinese government. We will be forced to intervene."

I climbed up another step. "Do what you have to do."

And they did. A hand ripped me from the gate, and a pair of arms caught me, binding me like a bear trap. The officers pinned me against the stone entryway and wrenched my wrists behind my back.

"Agh, stop it!" I cried. "I didn't—I didn't do anything!"

They responded with an elbow planted firmly in the small of my back. That held me in place, and two cold steel cuffs bound my wrists together. The officers dragged me to the cruiser and forced my head down to fit me inside. They fit me in there like a monkey going into a cage.

I cast one more glance at the ambassador's residence, and I lay down in the back seat of the cruiser. It was, strangely enough, easier to rest there than at home. The lightbar had a high-pitched hum about it that dwarfed the ringing in my ears, and as the officers radioed back for instructions, it was like falling asleep to a TV drama—to a story.

That's what children do, after all, isn't it?

They wake up, and they get dressed, but the parents take care of breakfast, of putting a roof over their heads, and the like. Parents take care of all the important things. Children just play in a sandbox of what parents allow them to do. There's not much that can be made out of sand, except a big mess. And that just means someone has to come clean up after them.

I was no exception to that. Someone came to clean up after me, too.

She came in her fancy car, something that had been modern only forty years before. She was in uniform when she arrived, and as she spoke with the police officers, the officers' flashlight beams reflected off her hat. The emblems there gleamed in the light: the ivy branch and the cherry blossom in the shape of a star, a cherry blossom in faded gold.

It's said that the use of a cherry blossom for a star represents the fragility of those who serve in SDF. Those people should be admired for their service, for that service could be snuffed out in a heartbeat, just as cherry blossoms are ephemeral in the springtime. But to me, a cherry blossom represents all the time spent cultivating the tree, selecting for the right genes, and providing the water and nutrients for it to flower. People, too, are products of all that is put into them.

She definitely was. Whatever she'd been before, she'd become the woman who could wear that hat and represent it well.

"I'm sorry he's caused you trouble," she told the officers. "He's been through a lot today; I hope that's understandable."

"Whether it's understandable or not, it's our duty to protect the ambassador's residence," said the female officer. "Just keep him away from here, and it's fine. Is that something we can trust to you, General?"

"Of course." The woman in green clicked her heels together. "You have my word as an officer."

The policewoman opened the cruiser door and undid the cuffs. They presented me to Misato, and they went on their way.

Only when the cruiser was out of sight did Misato speak to me. She clicked her tongue in displeasure, saying, "Well, look at you—making me get all dressed up at this time of night. Usually when I get dressed for a man I get a happier time than this."

"I'm sorry," I said, and I plopped into the passenger seat of her car. "I'll make dinner next time."

She scoffed, shaking her head, and she closed the door behind me. She climbed into the driver seat, but she spun her keyring around her finger, staring down the road.

"You know…"

I leaned against the armrest, away from her. "What?"

"What did you think you'd accomplish here?"

"I'm sorry."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"I'm sorry, okay?" I turned my back to her, facing out the window. "I just want to go home and forget about it."

"It _is_ stupid, you know—to go yelling at a gate in the middle of the night."

"I get that!" I said, propping my chin up with my arm as I looked away.

"But that's not as stupid as protecting some territory you claimed from the outside world, even as goddamn terrorists take up residence there, all because you're too embarrassed to ask for help."

I looked at her from the side. "Some people don't see it that way."

She caught her keys in hand and started the car. The engine hummed, and the lights on the instrument display came to life. "Well, they're wrong, but if you want to change their thinking—"

She revved the engine, but we went nowhere.

"Ah, sorry. Always forget to take off the brake."

She disengaged the parking brake, but with her hand hovering on the gear shifter, she said,

"If you want to change their thinking," she went on, "you have to do more than just make a lot of noise, you know?"

I buckled my seat belt. "What do you have in mind?"

"Are you really interested in the answer?" she said, eyes on the road, impassive, focused.

I looked down the road, too. My ears rang still, with that incessant high-pitched hum that blared through them no matter how I turned my head, but the car's engine competed with that sound. It was a solid undertone while that ringing in my ears by itself was nothing but a distraction. The engine was like music by comparison.

It was noise with a purpose.

"I'm willing to listen," I said.

Misato smiled to herself. "That's my boy," she said, and she shifted the car into first to take us away.

#

Misato had a plan for me, you see. She'd always had plans for me. I could be an instrument, a tool, a weapon—and in this case, I didn't mind it one bit. Yes, it could be dangerous. It could be uncomfortable.

It _was_ uncomfortable, for the day she asked me to act, I did a stupid thing: I tied my necktie too tight.

I waited in the lobby of my building the next morning, the day after Misato rescued me from the law. I watched the seconds tick away on my phone. I fidgeted with my tie and with the shirt button under my neck. My shoes were well-polished but ill-fitting. There's nothing more unsettling than wearing someone else's suit and feeling dwarfed by it.

I checked the time on my phone and paced within the lobby. It was light outside, with long shadows from the east, but flashbulbs cut through the darkness. The police had cleared a path from the building door to the street, but all along the sides of that route, reporters lined up for the perfect shot.

At nine o'clock sharp, a black car pulled up to the curb, and I readied myself to go. I tugged on my sleeves; I stood straight and tall. I put one hand on the frame of the revolving door. I took a breath.

And I went out among the crowd. I walked with a steady step down the concrete stair with a hand on the railing, and the reporters opened up with their salvos.

"Ikari, why the change of heart?" one asked. "What do you plan to say? Are you getting involved in politics now?"

They were all like that. They clamored for news from me—for a word, a look, a hint of what I meant to do. The reporters on the front of the barricade pushed and jostled amongst each other. They reached out with their microphones as far as they could.

I didn't have much to offer them, really. I just gave them a nod and went on my way.

I made for the car and hurried to go. A policeman opened the door for me, and I climbed into the back seat. The police cleared the way for us, and the driver shifted into gear.

There was just one thing that caught my eye, though, before we left. It wasn't the crowd of reporters and onlookers—at least, not all of them. Rather, it was just one person, one man who stood near the fringe of the crowd.

Shigeru Aoba looked on in casual clothes. He followed the car with his eyes and held a mobile phone to his ear.

But we left Aoba and the crowd behind. We left them all in the morning's long shadows. And after that, there was just the soft hum of the tires on asphalt.

Until we reached a stoplight.

The driver shifted into _park_ , and she looked straight at me. "Ready, sir?" she asked.

I gulped, and I told her I was. The driver flipped a switch on the front control panel, and the floor in the back seat slid aside, opening a hole. Beneath the car was a manhole, which opened up from below, too. From the sewer crawled a person in a gray suit and red tie. I offered that person a hand to help her into the car.

"I don't have anything on my jacket, do I?" she asked. It was Maya Ibuki.

I told her there was nothing to worry about, and she seemed relieved—too relieved. She put on a pair of sunglasses. "What do you think?" she asked, and she lapsed into a husky, low voice. " 'Hello, I'm Ikari. I wear sunglasses even in the morning.' "

I pressed my lips together, trying not to react. It was to be expected, right? If someone's going to pretend to be you, you'd better expect they'll do everything you do—and they'll never let you forget they were more believable as you than you were. And Maya did look a _lot_ like me in that suit. Maybe I did need to put on some muscle, or grow a beard. Asuka hadn't liked the idea, though. Apparently it tickles.

Anyway, with Maya taking my place, she gave me her hardhat, and I headed down the manhole into the sewer. Thankfully, the sewer had been fairly dry—it had been designed for monsoons for before Second Impact, so it was well under capacity. The last thing I needed was to fight through sludge in a rented suit.

It was about a kilometer underground until I reached the drain to the river. I escaped up another manhole, one that had been left open, and a white van was waiting for me at the road. A friendly face was on the line for a video call as soon as I took my seat. Misato was waiting for me on the monitor. She took one look at me and said,

"You know, you're gonna have to pay for the dry cleaning fees for that suit."

I couldn't believe it. "This isn't covered?" I cried.

At that, Misato grinned. I'd taken her bait.

I'd taken her bait just like Seele had. "Relax," she said with a wink. "You just helped capture a Selee terror cell. I think we can forgive a spot or two."

I sat back, undid my tie, and breathed easy. If I had to drop ten thousand yen getting the smell out of this suit, so be it. It would be money well spent.

By the end of the day, ten Seele terrorists would be in Japanese custody, and I had been a part of it.

#

Word of the operation was already the talk of the base. Misato's people took me straight to the mountain (which was no short trip!) since an attempt on my life easily justified cancelling my appearance—yes, even though I was never in any danger. So we made for the base, and once I was through the security checkpoints, the guards' behavior made it clear: those in the security substation were all watching the news.

"Seele assassination attempt foiled; suspects in custody."

It was a good day.

The news was the only topic of conversation at lunch, too. I headed to the officers' mess as soon as I could change out of that suit, and everyone there was watching reports of the operation. Of course, when I took my seat at the table, I couldn't avoid a little attention for it. Asuka called me a spy in training and gave me a peck on the cheek for a reward. Captain Hyuga was also quite proud: he slid a card with a series of letters and numbers over to me.

"That's the discretionary fund for mess," he told me. "Treat yourself to something. You've earned it."

So I could buy an extra dessert for lunch? What a treat!

I took to the meal card to start picking out my lunch, but there was time. It was still ten minutes to noon, and most of the other officers—or other civilian members of the mess—were coming in or filling out their cards, too. Just as I picked out some green tea ice cream for myself, someone plopped down beside me: Nozomi. She slipped her sketchpad into a bag and hunched over the table to fill out a meal card. I said hello to her, but she didn't look back.

"Hey. Nice job, Ikari." That's all she said.

That was odd. It was a Sunday. Even without the attack the day before, Sundays had been Nozomi's day off. I asked her about that, and she just shrugged, saying,

"Just figured I'd see if there was work to do. Got stood up on a date this morning."

Asuka slapped me on the side of the head, and I hung my head low for a good half a minute after that. After all that had happened—no, even in spite of that, I shouldn't have forgotten. I asked her if we could try again the next week, but Nozomi wasn't about to let me off that easily. She had new pencils, after all, and to let me break them in could be a waste. I had to put my hands together and beg. "Please, Teacher!" I said. "Please let me learn from you!"

That, at least, got a smile out of her. "Okay, relax," she said. "Next week is fine."

That was a relief, and with my punishment over, we got to lunch. Talk of the operation was still the only thing going at the table—despite a standing rule about work-related conversations over food. Overall, the table was optimistic. We were making headway against Seele, and this operation was just the beginning. Already there was talk that one of the Seele operatives had a Chinese passport, furthering the clamor for action against China or Myanmar.

That was worth a scoop of green tea ice cream for my trouble. No doubt about that.

And yet, I left lunch wanting a little more.

I went to my office afterward, but I can't say I was very productive. It's not that I didn't have a lot of work to do: no, there was a pile of file folders on my desk, ranging from pilot performance reports to simulation schedules. Blame it on how connected we'd become as a society, but I found myself watching more footage from the operation. TV news stories, cell phone camera footage, all of it.

These images were like a drug to me, and even now, it's hard for me to explain why. It's not like I _enjoy_ scenes of military action. I'm not like Kensuke. But maybe it's because I could've been there. I could've been in Ibuki's place, had we not swapped places for my own protection. I could've been right there.

They didn't go down without a fight, you know. The news footage showed a couple cars sideswiped on a city street, broken windows, and the like.

It was those bastards' fault, right? They were the ones who put up a fight. They could've just surrendered. They were criminals. They all knew it. We had the force of law on our side. It's our job to enforce the law, and we can't be held responsible for what happens when people refuse it, right?

Right?

At some point, I grew tired of thinking that way. I turned my monitor off and locked up my office behind me. I headed upstairs—all the way upstairs. There was only one office on the top floor, with an SDF staffer seated outside it to direct traffic and manage appointments. The secretary took one look at me and held up a hand. She got on the phone to ask if I would be allowed in.

I was, and the door clicked open.

The general's office was spartan and functional. The white walls had no pictures, diplomas, or other decorations. A cardboard box with folders, papers, and the like sat at the foot of her desk. The only personal item was a small brass stand at the front of the desk, on which hung her cross-shaped pendant—stained with her own blood.

Misato was right at home, though: she was eating some artificial salmon rolls. The tray was perched precariously on the desk corner, but Misato didn't mind it. She popped one in her mouth and chewed.

"Well!" said Misato, still chewing. "How does it feel to be a hero for a day?"

It felt good, but I didn't want to bask in that feeling without knowing there was substance behind it. "Maybe I'm a hero today," I said, pulling up a chair, "but what all did we accomplish?"

Misato put down her chopsticks, and she shuffled a file folder aside. Ten terrorists captured, two dead. They were being interrogated as we spoke.

And what did it cost? Not too much: a little property damage, yes. There had been a brief standoff, but they'd stood down without a lot of extra bloodshed. That was the good thing (the only good thing) about Seele: they didn't like to play by the suicide bomber handbook. They wanted paradise to be for them, too.

The only other casualty was Maya Ibuki, who'd come up limping after her car was rear-ended. Misato assured me it was probably a sprain, but, in her words, "You can't be too careful with this sort of thing."

I didn't feel that way. I shook my head, looking to the ceiling. "We have to get these guys for this."

"Patience, young man," were Misato's words of wisdom. She slid her lunch aside and sat back in her chair, hands folded. We were in this for the long game. "I've been working toward this for two years," she told me. "You can't worry about one day too much."

I asked her about that. For all two years? From the beginning? She told me it was so. Almost from the moment she came back from the sea, she'd been working toward securing the new world.

"You know why I came back?" she asked me. "It was Rei. She asked me to."

Maybe Misato would've come back on her own, in time, but Ayanami—she asked Misato first.

"The world needed a warrior," Misato told me.

And there she was. She knew Eva, and she knew Angels. She smiled as she thought back, remembering those early days after we returned from the sea. It had been a surprise, to me at least, that they made her a general, but Misato understood it well: they didn't have anyone else. Who else could they turn to? Who else had the experience and was willing?

And Misato was more than willing.

"I jumped at the chance," she told me. Misato leaned forward and turned the cross-shaped necklace in her hand.

It was what she'd been born to do—ever since she went to Antarctica. She said there were great and powerful things out there. " We're so small compared to them, but we can stand against them if we have the will, and the determination, to do what we must to survive."

Not everyone has that. I wasn't sure I did, even.

"Don't sell yourself short," she told me, but beyond that, she sighed, looking away, and agreed. There _were_ a lot of people like that out there. "They stick their heads in the sand and pretend it's not their problem. The Chinese are like that." Her face twisted bitterly. "Some people these days. They came back from the sea, but now they just want to hold on to what they have."

"So we have to be better," I said, nodding to myself. "We have to prove that, every day."

She reached across the desk and tussled my hair. "That's what I like to hear." She smiled. "Don't forget that. We're the ones who can save the world. Probably a thousand people worked on building this bunker, and a thousand more worked on the machines those people used—they're all asking us to save them. This is what we choose to do. This is what we strive for."

With that, she shot me a wink.

"You and me both, right?"

Such was the strength of Misato's convictions. Such was the effortlessness with which she announced them. And you know what? I admired that. I definitely admired it. Misato—she pulled herself together from the sea, and she went to work. She didn't wait. She didn't wallow in the mistakes she'd made in the past. She knew the weight of the world would rest on her shoulders, if she were willing to take it on, and she did.

And I had that opportunity, too.

#

A few days later, the investigation into the detained terrorists brought up an encouraging lead:

"Keel Lorenz."

Misato showed me on a map, pinpointing a location in the mountains of Myanmar.

"Maybe he's moved, maybe not, but if he's still there, then we have him."

Of course, the Chinese were obstinate about the whole thing. They didn't believe Lorenz would stay in the same location for long, and even if he did, they said it was their matter to take care of. They wanted the intel with no promise that they would act on it. Like that would mean very much anyway.

So Misato hatched a plan: she would send a contingent of SDF members undercover to capture Lorenz at his hideout and take him back to Japan, where he could be interrogated for his network's secrets and tried for his crimes. The only problem, in Misato's mind, was finding a way to get these Japanese special forces so far inland without the Chinese knowing about it.

"Of course," she remarked to me, "if they could get into the country under pretense of ordinary, official business—like service staff for a celebrity and a humanitarian—that would smooth things over nicely."

When exactly had I become a humanitarian?

"Semantics!" she'd argued when I pointed this out. "You go to Myanmar; they pose as your bodyguards and support staff. Problem solved."

Problem not solved. If I were caught and detained in China, I could be tried for espionage or worse. Even if I suffered no consequences, if the Chinese ever found out about it, that would be the start of an international incident.

So we just had to make sure we wouldn't get caught.

I discussed the idea with Asuka later that night, and she was cautiously receptive about it. "Somebody's gotta get that clown," she said, speaking of Lorenz. "But this week? It's Mama's birthday on Friday."

I winced. There was food to prepare, clothes to wear, phone calls to be made. All of that would be derailed by me taking a trip.

But Asuka thought about it for a time, and she relented. "It's not like she's going anywhere," Asuka argued. "If you're comfortable with it, Shinji, then go for it. We've got to win against these bastards—these killers."

That's right. They were killers.

And I headed to Myanmar two days later.

#

Naypyidaw was a ghost town.

The new Myanma capital had been built up over the last fifteen years, and not without reason. With the flooding of Yangon after Second Impact, there was need for a new capital, just as the destruction of old Tokyo had demanded, but the Myanma government, in a time of strife and economic uncertainty, had poured vast sums of money into a lavish, ostentatious new city where none had existed before. That wasn't like Japan, where Tokyo-2 had expanded on old Matsumoto, or how Tokyo-3 used old Hakone and the Geofront. Yes, we claimed to have built the Geofront, and maybe that pushed the Myanma to build something equally grand, but that was all a lie anyway. We didn't spend that money.

They did, and that money was wasting away every day.

It was wasting away in the hands of an occupying government. After Third Impact, the Myanma government simply ceased to be. What leaders returned from the ocean couldn't consolidate their power, and after a few months, the Chinese intervened. The occupation secured their border, or so they said. Maybe it just kept an anti-Chinese government from securing power, or perhaps it secured a historically fertile ground for rice cultivation at a time when global food production had halted. There are many shades of "security," you see.

Whatever the reason, the Chinese were in place, in nominal control of Myanmar, and we had to work through them to get to Lorenz.

We arrived in Naypyidaw and took a caravan to our hotel, but it was a conspicuous journey. Our convoy probably made up half the vehicles on the road at any given time. There were copious amenities, but I can't imagine there were many people around to take advantage of them.

Because of that, my escort started getting ideas. His name was Ishikawa, and he was my liaison to the Chinese. He was a bit young, and he had a wide grin like he was too full of himself. He had the nerve to ask the Chinese if we could get a round or two at the golf course while I was visiting. Never mind that I don't play golf. The Chinese, of course, were not amused.

"Perhaps if the governor invites you," said the Chinese aide, when Ishikawa kept pressing him.

Ishikawa asked if the governor really would, but the Chinese aide just looked up him and down and said, "No."

That was Naypyidaw: concerned about appearances. The hotel was much the same. It looked grand and expensive on the outside, with three fountains to greet us, but inside? The whole place smelled of mold. Hot water was lukewarm at best (and definitely _not_ if someone was using it next door).

Then again, there weren't that many people staying in town, either. Our group—about twenty of us in all—had a floor all to ourselves, and that was just fine for us. It gave our party the chance to get squared away. A group of Japanese consulate members came by with bags of essentials: travel materials, maps, dining guides…

Along with disassembled assault rifles, flashbang grenades, and night vision goggles.

The leader of the team, Captain Suzuki, was a stern-faced woman—all business. She was the first to put a rifle together, testing the alignment of the sights and how easily the magazine could be ejected and replaced.

And she shook her head, muttering in frustration. She rattled off a litany off mistakes and problems with just that one rifle, insisting that a subordinate mark them down, and she instructed the rest of her men to start examining the rifles, too. "Go over every single one," she told them. Nothing could be left to chance. She was stickler for detail that way.

She wasn't very forgiving, either, for once she was done giving those instructions, she took my friend Ishikawa aside for a few words. Ishikawa was more than just a liaison, you see—or I should say, he was more than just a local Japanese go-between. The guns were his responsibility, and since they were faulty, that meant it was his head on the line for it. Ishikawa had his hands up the whole time Suzuki ripped him for the problems.

"Well, I'm sorry," he told her, and he took a rag to one of the magazines to clean it off. "This was the best we could do."

Suzuki wasn't having any of it. "Do better next time," she said.

Ishikawa laughed nervously at that; Suzuki had a good two centimeters on him, and she wasn't shy about standing close enough to make that clear. Ishikawa backed away like a rat, and the two let each other be. Ishikawa complained about Naicho not having enough money to do much better—and he actually asked me if I could "talk to a few politicians" and make something happen for him.

I told him I'd have to think about it—about when I might have the desire to talk to politicians, anyway.

Luckily, there was real business to take care of. Ishikawa had brought us more than just guns and ammunition. When Suzuki's team was done fixing what the spies had done wrong, Ishikawa briefed us on the situation on the ground. Naicho agents, under the guise of appraising real estate, had gathered intelligence on Lorenz's compound. That intelligence was crucial to verifying Lorenz was present and where he was hiding.

Lorenz had a compound several kilometers west of the capital, in the suburb of Pyinmana. The house was some ways from any major roads, with a perimeter of high walls, all lined with barbed wire for good measure. And with a privacy wall blocking the view into the house, no one had seen Lorenz personally, nor had they heard his voice through surveilance. The house had no telephone nor Internet connection, just a satellite dish for television reception. The theory was that Lorenz would see what was going on from television, and he would record a statement to espouse Seele propaganda to the world.

That was his undoing.

Naicho planted an acoustic device in one of the compound's grocery shipments. The device wasn't a radio receiver, so routine checks for bugs wouldn't pick it up. It just broadcast a particular frequency—inaudible to human ears—that could be picked up by a videocamera. Naicho verified the presence of this particular frequency in Seele propaganda video featuring Lorenz earlier that morning.

In other words, the man just couldn't shut up for his own good.

All we had to do then was get Captain Suzuki's team to Pyinmana and arrange the raid. The plan for this was simple: we'd go to Pyinmana, and the team would sneak away at dusk, traveling down the road by foot to attack the compound. Cars arranged by the consulate would be waiting to take the assault team back to the capital once the operation was completed.

I just had to go to Pyinmana and survey the conditions. Captain Suzuki's team would be my escort, and we only had to delay long enough to justify being there at dusk. I was supposedly a humanitarian. That would be easy enough.

If we didn't need permission, anyway.

"We'll need authorization from the governor to leave the city proper." Captain Suzuki's eyes flickered to me. "You'll have to make a request."

I gulped at that, and I tightened my necktie.

#

If you thought the hospitality quarter of Naypyidaw was bizarre, you hadn't seen anything yet.

The ministerial quarter embodied everything about the top-down design of the city, except cranked up to an even more absurd degree. A twenty-lane freeway sat empty but for my car. The ministry buildings along the road all looked the same: off-white walls topped by diamond-shaped, burgundy roofs. Those buildings could've come off an assembly line.

And even the governor's mansion—formerly, the Presidential Palace—shared this color scheme. It was classical in style, with pillars along the front and gigantic windows all along its street-facing side. The road alongside it had striped caution markers along the curb in red and white, like a racecourse. I guess with no one in town, a lonely diplomat or security agent might take to blazing down that road at 200 kilometers per hour, just for something to do.

The governor might've been the same way. Our Chinese driver stopped us at near one of the fountains, where an older man walked, flanked by a team of four security people. His hair was white, and he was balding, but she shot the two of us—my translator and I—a wide smile. He was Xu Biming, proclaimed governor of the "Protected Territory of Myanmar." He was friendly at least, offering a hand to Ishikawa, and then to me.

"So here is the boy," he said, a glint of true recognition in his eye. "It's an honor to meet you."

I said is likewise an honor for me, too, and I put on a face that I might've even believed.

But despite my doubts about Governor Xu, he was very welcoming, even charming. When Ishikawa mentioned that we wanted to go to Pyinmana, the governor laughed.

"You just arrived and already you want to go to Pyinmana?" he said. "Not enough for you to see here?"

He gestured at the fountains and the empty roadway, continuing to laugh. It was a joke: the grand joke that was Naypyidaw. In his words, the city had been built "for no one but the government officials who ordered it made." He shook his head at that. "Believe me," he went on, " _I_ would rather be in Pyinmana."

The governor handed our itinerary over to an aide, instructing him to see to it, but even while we waited for the aide to call in some information, the governor insisted on chatting with us. Governor Xu was an older man, and there was some amount of weariness in his eyes. Weariness from looking over an empty city every day? Maybe that wasn't quite it. Maybe what lay outside the city frightened him more.

"Ikari," he said to me, "I'm hopeful you can show the world what's going on here in Myanmar."

The Chinese government, of course, insisted that Myanmar was under control. All the governor asked was that, if my experiences happened to bear that out, I would say so.

"And if my experiences don't bear that out?" I asked him, watching his face like a hawk.

The governor smiled coyly, like a child caught with their hand in the candy jar. "Then I hope you would say so," he said.

When the governor's aide came back with our itinerary stamped for approval, I offered my hand to the governor, and we shook on that.

#

If Naypyidaw was an example of a city built whether people wanted to live there or not, Pyinmana was its opposite: a city built because people needed to work and live there, even if that wasn't the case any more. If Naypyidaw was a model, kept pristine and perfect through copious effort, Pyinmana was reality: dirty, lived-in, and decaying.

Little wonder someone like Lorenz would set up shop in Pyinmana. What few people were still around inhabited ramshackle buildings, with peeling paint and rotting planks of wood. They peered out at us like rats, hiding from the headlights when our vehicles went by. And oh, there were _real_ rats, roaming the streets in droves. More than once, the Chinese rerouted us to keep us from being buried in a sea of tails and teeth. I had never seen a whole four-lane road completely overrun with rats before. I hope never to see it again.

Luckily, we weren't there to sightsee for very long. Captain Suzuki quickly led our caravan to the edge of town, and there, we parted ways. As dusk set in, Suzuki and her men changed to combat gear and abandoned two vehicles with just a driver and a lookout to keep watch.

And I?

I headed back to Naypyidaw. My bodyguards and staff were having a night out, I would say. Maybe no one would believe it—what was there to do in Naypyidaw?—but it was something.

Now, I won't dare suggest that it was hard waiting for word of the operation. It certainly wasn't harder than what the soldiers were doing. But it wasn't easy, either. Every sound—every creak of the floorboards, every chirp of insects in the trees—rattled me a bit. Were they back yet? Were they coming through that door?

Were the Chinese coming through that door instead, having found us out?

No, it was just a housekeeper passing our rooms in the hallway.

I tried to settle down—using puzzles, or by trying to remember pieces of music I'd learned for the cello—but it wasn't until a couple hours in that I first got word. My satellite phone rang. The exchange was scripted, but it went something like this:

"It's Suzuki," said the voice on the other end of the line. "We found the candy you were looking for, sir."

I shot up. "You're sure? It's still in stock?"

"We're bringing a pack for you now," she said.

We got him.

We actually got him. We got Keel Lorenz. That scourge upon the earth would walk free no more.

And you know what? I celebrated. I pumped my fist in the air, and I opened a complimentary bottle of wine, drinking straight from the bottle (the SDF team were constantly on duty and wouldn't be allowed to drink anyway).

I was in such a good mood that, when there was a knock on my door, I didn't even bother to check who was outside. I went to the door with the bottle in hand, and I cried out, "You guys had an easy time of—"

WHACK!

The butt of a rifle smacked me across the forehead, and the bottle of wine tumbled to the floor.

#

A strange voice in stilted Japanese roused me. "Good morning, Ikari," it said.

I woke up slumped in a metal chair, with my hands tied around the back of it. The room was gray, with a mirror across from me. Two Chinese policemen guarded the door. A third stood off to the side.

And in front of me? The governor of Myanmar territory rubbed his glasses with a cloth.

We exchanged pleasantries for a short time. He asked if I'd slept well (I hadn't). He remarked that a Chinese jail cell was no country inn. I think, if a truck had careened through the building, he would've said that someone must've gone off the road.

As we talked, I sat upright, and I tried to scoot the chair closer to the table, but it wouldn't move: it was bolted to the floor.

The governor noticed this, and he narrowed his eyes. Pleasantries were over. "Why did you come here?" he asked me.

I said nothing.

"Ikari, please," he said, moving forward with folded hands. "We both know why you're here."

I said nothing. I closed my eyes, and I tapped the tip of my shoe on the floor. _One; one, two; one, two, three; one, two, three, four_.

THUD! The governor slammed his hand on the table, and I lost count.

"Are you listening?" he asked me.

I tapped my foot again. _One; one, two; one, two, three—_

"Do you not understand, Ikari, that this can go only one of two ways?" he asked me. "You can confess your involvement in a conspiracy to violate Chinese sovereignty. If you do, we will show leniency and repatriate you to Japan in exchange for considerations from your government. If you do not…you will leave us no choice but to convict you of your crimes and imprison you for them. Do you understand?"

Just focus—that's all I had to do. Focus on the rhythm. Focus on the beat. The words could all get drowned out, as long as I focused on it. I kept counting to myself: One, two, three, four, five, six; one, two—

"Don't you want to go home again, Ikari?"

I shut my eyes tight. _—four, five, six, seven, one—_

"Don't you have a girlfriend?" A chair squeaked against the floor. "Don't you want to see her again before you're an old man?"

I trembled in the seat, but I had to keep my count. I had to keep my count. Asuka would kill me if I didn't keep my count. _—eight, nine; one, two, three, four, five, six—_

The door opened. Another police officer came in and whispered something to the governor. He shot the officer a cross look and said something in Chinese, but the officer just repeated the message, and the governor grimaced.

"Ikari," he said, "our time grows short. You didn't play a big part in this. But my government demands that you concede that wrongdoing was done. Without that—" He paused, and stood in front of my chair. "Without that," he went on, "you have no future as a free man."

A pause. He stared at me.

"Do you have anything to say?" he asked.

He stood there, with the felt cloth for his glasses sticking out partly from his coat pocket. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he glanced at his watch.

And just who was this man? A career politician, no doubt, and not a very good one, considering he'd ended up in Myanmar. Someone must not have liked him very much, and yet there he was, trying to save his job, trying to save his position in the government with my confession. Never mind that we did what his government couldn't.

I understood him. I really did. He was someone who set out on a path, right? He must've set out on a path and gone with the flow for so long he had no idea how to do anything else. He would do anything to cling to what he knew, to who he was.

But you can't do that forever.

So I looked the governor in the eye…

And I tapped my toe on the floor behind me.

Sighing, he gave some orders to the policemen, and the two guards yanked me from the chair. They took me by the arms and out the door, into the light. One of them drew a knife, and—

Snip.

They cut my plastic bindings loose.

"Please check your bags to make sure everything is in order, Ikari," said one of the governor's aides.

I turned around and bumped into them—two traveling suitcases were lined up next to the wall.

And beyond them was a grand view: a view over the runway at Naypyidaw Airport as two jet liners taxied on their way to the terminal.

"Your party is waiting for you at Gate 11," said the aide, and she gestured across the concourse. Sure enough, at Gate 11—not more than twenty meters across from us—stood Captain Suzuki and the rest of the team. Suzuki herself nodded at me, stone-faced and professional.

I took my bags in hand, but the governor stood in front of me. He wiped the sweat from his brow, and he jerked his head at the policemen, making them back off out of earshot.

"We—" he said, in halting Japanese, "we fight the same war. Seele terrorists and murderers—we fight the same war against them. Why would you do this—bring violence and strife to my country? Why, Ikari?"

I looked across to our party before meeting the governor's gaze. I tilted my head slightly, and I smiled a little, saying,

"Your people didn't do enough. You know that, Governor. You didn't do enough, so I'm not sorry if something we do to stop them inconveniences you. I was there when Seele bombed Tokyo-2. That was much, much more than a mere _inconvenience_ to me, or to the twenty-two people who died there."

The governor looked aside, staring out the windows to the runway. "That was a tragedy, but we did not have to be adversaries now."

"You could've done more. You _should've_ done more."

He met my gaze again, and his head shook a little. "And you couldn't have?"

I didn't answer. I picked up my bags and bowed, and I left the governor there to get on my plane. I took my seat on the private jet and lay back in cushioned, relaxed comfort. There could be nothing better than that after a night of hard sleeping.

Well, except for turning around and seeing Keel Lorenz handcuffed to a seat.

"Good morning, Chairman," I said with a faux salute. "I hope you like Japanese food. You'll be visiting for a while."

#

The official story was that the Chinese performed the operation to capture Keel Lorenz. Acting on Japanese intelligence, they were the ones who raided his safe house, and as part of an "agreement," they turned him over to us. No JSDF members had set foot in Myanmar. Such a thing would've been an embarrassing violation of Chinese sovereignty—almost as embarrassing as the suggestion that the Chinese had failed to act against a known terrorist hiding out on their own soil. "Officially" such a thing never happened. Misato made sure to negotiate it that way.

And I was fine with that because, in the end, we still came away with Lorenz. The Chinese could save face all they wanted. We were the ones putting Lorenz in a cell hundreds of meters beneath a mountain. The guards wouldn't even let him see where he was going: they walked him through the buildings with a hood over his head, but you knew it was him. He wouldn't shut up about it.

"How smug and confident you are," he said at one point. "The confidence of ants against a man with a garden hose."

If only we could tape that hose to his mouth and run the water. I'm sure he wouldn't have had a smart remark for that.

Though I'd done only a little to help see it through, I'd had a hand in it. I helped provide the SDF members cover to get into the country, after all.

No one would know, of course—not until much later, anyway. For the moment, it was a small footnote in the news that I'd even made a trip to Myanmar. The most anyone else would read about it was that Lorenz was captured, and that his aides and confidants were taken or killed in the raid.

We got Keel Lorenz. We made a difference in the world. We gutted the cult of personality that had grown around him. We cut out the weeds. That felt good.

And yet, it wasn't enough. There were a few bad patches lingering in the landscape of mankind, and I met them first-hand.

It was the day I'd returned from Myanmar. Misato had flown us straight back to Manoah Airfield, and after locking Lorenz away for hopefully the rest of eternity, I was on my way home. I came back through National Square—through corridors of opaque fencing that cordoned off the rubble—and left through an improvised security checkpoint.

And _those people_ were there. They demonstrated in front of National Square with signs and placards. There were even a couple Lorenz impersonators—replete with visors and motorized chairs. The crowd beat down an effigy of an Evangelion, leaving pillow stuffing on the street.

The monster of Seele had gone down, but they weren't about to let him be forgotten.

"The Angels are coming back!" a man with a megaphone cried. "What are we fighting for? Nothing!"

"Nothing!" the crowd roared. "Nothing!"

I passed them by, in my hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses, as I made for home that evening. I kept my fist at my side and my head down. I hid behind the wall of police officers that guarded the entrance to the Square.

"Stop the Eva program!" they shouted. "Let us all go back to the sea!"

Those people—why did they have to be there? Why did they have to exist? There was nothing stopping them from going back to the sea on their own. All they had to do was wade in the water and want to die. Then they wouldn't be our problem. They wouldn't be anybody's problem, but that wasn't good enough for them. They just had to make it all miserable for the rest of us. Humanity was an orchestra to them, and all of us who wanted to stay on earth were a missing section.

Well, my cello and I were staying on Earth, and I had no interest in being a part of their sad song, but there was no getting away from it fully. Their footsteps were the drumbeat of that wretched symphony. Their chants were the sounds of a choir singing for all the world to hear.

"Lay down your arms!" cried the man with the megaphone. "Join us in eternal salvation!"

I stopped to watch them about a hundred meters from the security checkpoint. A line of police officers stood at the sidewalk's edge while the demonstrators marched down the street. I stood there, peering between the bodies of the officers and beyond their wooden barricades. Those barricades and the police were all that kept me from those idiots marching down the road.

I pulled off my sunglasses. I folded them up and slid them into my sweatshirt pocket. I took a step toward the barricade.

"Don't," said a voice.

A flat voice, quiet and steady.

The voice of Rei Ayanami.

She stood further down, toward the security checkpoint.

"What do you want?" I said. "I'm busy. I have people to talk to."

"Confronting them will do no good," said Ayanami.

I scowled, but she was probably right. One of the police officers glanced over his shoulder and met my gaze. He alerted some of his comrades. "You can't stay here," he told me. "It's not safe if they recognize you."

Sighing, I put my sunglasses back on, tightened my hood, and went on down the road. "You've saved me again, Ayanami," I muttered. "Anyone else you want to save sometime soon?"

Ayanami fell into step beside me. "My actions have consequences."

I scoffed, and I watched the crowd of demonstrators. I watched them and not her. Ayanami had no business being there, no business stopping me. "She" was just the thing that was parading around in my dreams and hallucinations. What gave her the right to lecture me? If I were really so flawed, so imperfect, then maybe she should've found someone else to save. There were a lot of people out there. Some of them had probably done something good once in their lives.

But Ayanami wasn't giving it up. "Your actions have consequences, too, Ikari," she said.

I waved a hand in dismissal. "I did the right thing."

"You had an enemy before," said Ayanami. "How many more do you have now?"

"What else should we do?" I slapped my hand against the chain-link fence. "Do you see what happened here?"

"They want to divide people. They've done that. You took that man, but those people are still here."

"I don't care." I pulled on my sweatshirt hood, hiding my face from the crowd. "We got the guy. The Chinese were the ones too stubborn to see it our way."

And yet, Ayanami was dissatisfied. Her expectant stare told me that: what we'd done wasn't enough.

I scowled. I walked faster, letting my steps and the crowd's chants drown out everything else, and I left that ghost behind. Ayanami, with her soft voice, couldn't possibly speak over that—not unless she shouted.

"Ikari!"

Or yelled.

I froze. I took two small steps, turning around. My mouth hung open. I pulled my sunglasses off, seeing her for the pale specter she was.

Her red eyes shined so brightly then.

"You need to be careful, Ikari," she said. "Responsibility is a fire that burns inside the heart. If all you see in others is darkness, you will fan your own flames until you burn yourself out."

"You sure about that?" I asked her curtly.

Her eyes flickered off me, and she sagged a bit. "I'm still here," she said, back in her normal tone and volume.

I wiped my forehead and hissed at myself. "I'm sorry," I said, looking away. "I really am."

"I worry, Ikari," she said, her eyes snapping back to me. "It's easy to let those embers spill over without realizing it."

"What happened to you?" I asked her.

Ayanami gaped. "I can't explain. Not…easily."

I nodded, and I tugged on my sweatshirt hood, drawing it further over my forehead. I flipped out the temples of the sunglasses, and I put them back on. "Thanks anyway, Ayanami," I said.

"But, I can show you."

She took a step toward me—one step to bridge the gap between us. A pair of officers even walked through her, and she flickered out of existence for a time.

But she was still there, staring with her stark red eyes. Those eyes wavered as they watched me.

For a ghost or hallucination of Rei Ayanami, she was doing a pretty good job of looking the part. Ayanami would never have bawled or screamed her head off in pain. She held things like that in, but even the most closed-off person can't hold in real agony or anguish.

The Rei Ayanami who stood before me that day—on the sidewalk outside Ground Zero—was wounded. Her illusionary body didn't show a gash or cut, but there was pain in her eyes. It was something she fought to hold in.

So I turned back. I turned back against the tide of demonstrators. I put the man with the megaphone behind me.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked her.

"Close your eyes."

I did. And I tensed up as Ayanami's steps came closer.

"Open."

I opened my eyes, and there was light—light with yellow and orange hues. Real light. Not that otherworldly glow of the theater. No, this was…a kitchen? With a Western style table and chairs, with beer cans everywhere…

Beer cans everywhere?

I raced into the main room. The television, the curtains—they were all in place.

This was Misato's apartment.

I opened the curtains, and there it was: the city of Tokyo-3, with skyscrapers towering and majestic.

The city that should not be stood again.


	6. The Cross

**The Cross**  
 _Chapter Six_

I took a few minutes to study my surroundings, and I soon realized something:

This place may have looked like Tokyo-3, but it wasn't the city I remembered living in.

The first sign of that was the smog. Tokyo-3 had been a pioneer for clean energy, but a haze hung over this city as far as the eye could see. It was a thick cloud—you couldn't see above it.

Then there was the matter of my clothes: I was wearing a black robe and headdress—like something nomads or desert people might wear. The headdress came with facial covering, too, leaving only a slit for the eyes.

And even despite this, my skin was sticky with sunscreen: I found four bottles of sunscreen in the washroom, with two more empty ones in the trash. "Official government issue," the bottles read. "SPF 300."

No, I hadn't heard of SPF 300 before either. Couple that with the form-fitting goggles, double-layered gloves that tied to the robe, and long socks, and I think the picture became very, very clear.

You might think I'd be crazy to go outside at all under those conditions, but I had a feeling I wasn't supposed to do that. There was a note on the refrigerator:

"Presentation: Monday, Headquarters, 09:00."

The crosses on the calendar told me it was indeed Monday—the first of nine days in a week—and the clock on the wall read _08:15_.

There was only one place in town that could be called _headquarters_ , and Ayanami—she must've wanted me to see something—so I headed out.

The way to Central Dogma's street entrance was an unsettling hike. The buses didn't seem to be running, for one, and there was hardly any traffic on the roads. Some cars sat abandoned, with paint peeling off them or blistering. I walked the whole way, but the air had a foul stench about it, tingling the roof of my mouth. At first, my skin felt alive with pinpricks all over, but after a few minutes that sensation faded to a numb buzz. One could only hope I'd feel anything at all when I got inside.

After a good twenty minutes, I made it to the train station, and thankfully, the trains were still running. I didn't have to worry about finding a seat, either: there was hardly anyone else waiting.

The train got me to the Central Dogma street entrance. I did have an ID card to swipe at the gate, but when the blast doors opened and I stepped through, a voice called to me.

"Ah, hold the gate!"

I hesitated. Two other figures—clad head to toe in black—were at the card reader. My hesitation was enough for the first, the woman who'd called to me, to step through and straddle the seal, holding the gate open.

"Hurry up!" she called back to the second figure.

"I'm hurrying!" The second woman fished through a handbag for her ID card. All the while, the gate buzzed unpleasantly, with flashing lights and an audible countdown.

"This gate must close as a security precaution. Please clear the area. Authorities will be contacted in ten seconds if the gate is not closed. Ten, nine…"

At last, the second woman swiped in, and she scampered through the gate, too.

"Sorry about that," she said, bowing to me in gratitude. "Thanks for holding up; those things take so long to open up again, right?"

"Altogether too long," said the first woman. "Honestly! All the money they spent on this—you'd think they'd have come up with a better checkpoint system!"

"What can you do?" said the second. "It's bureaucracy in action."

"I know! It's awful." The first woman rolled her eyes.

Her stark red eyes.

"Ayanami?" I said.

"Huh?" She eyed me strangely; she _raised an eyebrow_. "What did you say?"

I flinched. "Oh, uh, I don't—sorry, I must be confused, I—"

"Samael?"

"Huh?"

She pulled back her headdress and took off her goggles. Sure enough, there she was—the girl with red eyes and pallid skin. But there, the similarities ended: this girl clucked in disappointment, like an older sister chiding me. "Come on, it's us," she said. "Who else would it be?"

The second woman pulled her hood back, too: it was Horaki. She eyed me strangely, too. "Maybe the sunscreen's getting to him?"

"It'd better not!" said Ayanami, and she looked at me crossly. "Samael, are you feeling all right?"

I laughed nervously, taking off my hood and goggles, too. "I'm fine," I said. "I just have a lot on my mind, I guess."

Ayanami nodded, pursing her lips. "We all do, don't we." She let out a heavy breath, and she looked to the distance—far down the giant escalator to Nerv Headquarters. "But!" she said, brightening, "that's what we're here for, right? We're going to help change that."

"We'll _try_ ," said Horaki.

"We _will_." Ayanami smirked. "Count on it."

What strange and bizarre alternate universe had I walked into?

I struggled with that question as Horaki, Ayanami, and I boarded the escalator down to the heart of Nerv. The girls went back and forth for a bit longer, with Ayanami confident that we would succeed and Horaki more measured and cautious about…well, whatever it was they were talking about. I couldn't really follow everything they were saying, but just how they carried themselves and behaved spoke volumes: this Ayanami spoke with sweeping gestures, but she looked directly at who she was speaking to and nodded along as she listened, never missing a word.

And she laughed.

Horaki said something funny, and Ayanami giggled. She even wiped at her eye to make sure she wasn't crying. What a sight that was to behold.

I can't say I remember what it was Horaki said, but I remember well what happened next: once Ayanami calmed down and caught her breath, she was…different, again. She got a distant look in her eye, and she asked Horaki,

"Do you think they'll go for it?"

Horaki started to look back, but she hesitated. "There's a chance," she said at last.

Ayanami frowned at that, irritated. "They ought to," she insisted.

"Yes," said Horaki, nodding. "They ought to." But she knew those people—whoever they were—might not.

There was a silence for a time. Ayanami closed her eyes, and her irritation turned to pain. She slumped a little bit. The weight of the world was on her, and she could be forgiven for buckling a tiny bit under it.

But she did bear that weight. She gripped the escalator railing, let out a breath, and opened her eyes. She stood straight and tall, and she looked on, eyes unblinking and cool, silent but watchful.

Horaki started talking again, and Ayanami said nothing. She kept that unflinching gaze, and a word—a name—sputtered from my lips.

"Lilith?" I said.

"Yes?" said Ayanami.

My mouth hung open. A faint sound came from my throat, but it was nothing resembling a word.

"Something wrong, Samael?" she said.

I shook my head, but she narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure? You've been awfully quiet."

"It's nothing, really!" I raised my hands. "Honest!"

"Okay…" She kept watching me. "If you say so."

I spent the rest of the escalator ride silent, with Ayanami and Horaki chatting away.

#

There were seven of us.

Horaki, Ayanami, and I headed to an elevator. Four others were already waiting there: people with the faces of Asuka, Nozomi, Toji, and Kaworu Nagisa. They waved to us, and we boarded the elevator without a word. Kaworu, with his white hair and red eyes, let everyone else on ahead of him. He stood at the front of the elevator cabin. He seemed to be in charge. He wanted to make sure everything was in order. He asked Horaki about some details, for instance:

"Did you make changes to the talk?" he asked Horaki.

"I did." Horaki handed him a flash drive. "Just a few tweaks to my part. I'll handle it."

"Very good." He tugged on his shirt, straightening out a few wrinkles, and he put on a smile for the group. "Everyone ready?" he asked.

"We'd better be," said Toji, who rubbed his arm up and down. "I'd hate for all that pokin' and proddin' to have been for nothin'."

Ayanami laughed. As serious as the mood was, she took it upon herself to lighten it. She sidled up to Toji and shot him a sly look. "So concerned about wasting your DNA all of a sudden? That's not what I've heard."

Who was this person?!

Toji reacted, too, albeit for a different reason. He put both hands in the air, saying, "I ain't got any idea what you're talking about." He snuck an irritated glance at me. "It can't be somebody like Samael's been spreadin' rumors—totally _untrue_ rumors—can it?"

Well, _I_ certainly didn't have anything to do with it.

"I didn't say Samael had anything to do with it," said Ayanami, with a smile that showed Samael had _everything_ to do with it. I could only be glad I wasn't actually Samael, or I would've been in trouble. "Besides," she told Toji, "you should be proud. Survival of the fittest and all that."

Toji's face went through three or four different contortions before settling on a tentative grin. "Yeah!" he said. "Yeah. I should be proud. I _am_ proud. Time like this, if you can help propagate the species and satisfy people doin' it—why not?"

"I don't know if _satisfaction_ is what I've been hearing," said Ayanami, stifling a laugh.

"Hey!"

They went back and forth like this for a short time, with Toji getting increasingly flustered about the whole thing, at least until Nozomi decided to step in—perhaps even in Toji's defense.

"Easy, Lilith." Nozomi touched Ayanami on the shoulder. "He knows your weakness."

"He does?" Ayanami went pale—well, paler than usual. "No he doesn't. Not a chance."

At that, Toji grinned. "Something from Enoch's Bakery? A high-priced, fancy—"

"Don't!" Ayanami pointed a finger at him. "Let's agree to let it go, all right? I don't have a problem with _that_ , and you don't have a problem with spreading your DNA around. Right?"

"This ain't fair when everyone knows about me and I can't say the word _cup_ —"

"Take it easy, both of you," said Horaki, shooting them a stern look. "A little levity is fine, but let's not get carried away."

Ayanami did a faux salute. "Yes, Mom! No joking around, and no cupcakes later!"

Horaki flushed a bit. "Let's not be hasty here. If we can get the Council to go along with the plan, I think one cupcake is only fair, don't you?"

"You two are hopeless," said Toji, and Horaki bowed her head and nodded in reluctant agreement, to the chuckles and laughter of the rest of the room. Ayanami even patted Horaki on the shoulder in joking consolation.

"Let's put on our professional faces, hm?" That was Kaworu, who nodded toward the counter above the elevator door. Sure enough, there was a _ding_ sound, and the doors opened…

To a wide platform with various and strange markings on the floor. Grand windows opened to the rest of the Geofront, with light pouring in from the outside.

This was—in another world—my father's office.

It wasn't my father's office there, though. In that world, rows of chairs had been placed, with no small audience sitting in them. My father was among them, but he was just one of many—which included Ritsuko, Maya, and more.

And from the front row, Misato rose, addressing the seven of us.

"Adam," she said, nodding in acknowledgement. "Thank you for bringing this plan to our attention."

"Of course, Madam President," said Kaworu. "I hope we can explain it clearly for you and for the assembled Councilors."

Two guards near the elevator showed us to a table with seven seats. Asuka took the first seat, then Kaworu, Nozomi, Toji, Horaki, me, and then Ayanami. There was a laptop in front of Kaworu's seat. He slotted in the flash drive Horaki had given him, and to the table's right (as we faced the crowd), a hologram materialized. The image was one of a planet, Earth-like in look—with landmasses and oceans and clouds—but the continents were different.

Kaworu took a handheld clicker in hand, and he circled around the table to the holographic projector. He addressed the room, saying,

"Ladies and gentlemen, Madam President, and members of the Council, good morning. My name is Adam. Our world and our people are in a dire situation, and I know there is not a soul left who doesn't eagerly await a solution, or who isn't working toward one.

"I'm pleased to present a proposal, one that our group at the Global Institute for Metaphysics has painstakingly developed over the past few months from technologies at hand." He gestured to our table. "A few of my colleagues are here today to help discuss the proposal and answer questions."

He clicked on his remote, and the hologram switched to some text.

"Now," he continued, "let me begin. I'll outline our current estimates for the Mainline Geofront proposal, including some of the shortcomings we hoped to address. Then, I'll hand off to one of my colleagues to discuss the Seed proposal we're presenting here, including the timeline for relocation. At the end of the talk, we'll answer your questions.

"But first," he said, clicking his remote once more, "let's discuss the Mainline Geofront proposal."

I won't pretend to be able to keep up with material such as this or to understand all the words. Still, I can tell you what I saw and what I did understand.

What I saw was a world that had been scarred—blasted, as though some angry god had held a burning candle to its side. Kaworu talked over this hologram projection, discussing the loss of entire species on the "irradiated hemisphere" of the planet. He spoke of an increase of cancer incidence worldwide, of crop failures due to a worldwide haze. It would take years—decades, or even more—for the ecosystem to recover.

But they had the Geofronts. They could go underground and save some of their people. They could grow food there and produce enough artificial light to sustain themselves through the dark times above ground.

But, large though an individual Geofront may have been, it was only so big. They could save people—some people. Millions, perhaps. Maybe even a billion or two.

In a world of many billions of people, that is a great sacrifice. And there would be no guarantee that civilization would recover even when the dark night passed.

"So you see," Kaworu concluded, "we at the Global Institute for Metaphysics were tasked to find a new solution, one that could save more lives—without requiring such a steep sacrifice or the inherent unfairness of selecting only a few of out every thousand people to continue civilization. For that explanation, I turn things over to one of my colleagues."

I looked down the right side of the table, toward the projector. Horaki rose, and she circled around the table's front. Kaworu handed over the remote. Then Horaki, standing with poise and solemnity, faced down the crowd.

"Good morning. I'm the lead scientist for Soul Transference Programs and Research at GIMP. My name is Eisheth."

She clicked a button on the remote, and the hologram switched back to a view of the planet, with splotches of light and dark red on the landmasses.

"The red color you see here," said Horaki, "is population density. All of these…"

She clicked the remote again, and dozens and dozens of spheres—filled with red—appeared on the projection.

"These are just a fraction of the Geofronts we'd need to protect ourselves until the ecosystem stabilizes. We don't have the time to invest in that. But, what we can do…"

Click. Back to the world in red.

Red and awash in crosses.

"What we _can_ do," said Horaki, "is store the souls of our people in the Geofronts we already have."

They were madmen. That's what they were. They were going to let themselves all die, harvest their own souls, and find somewhere else to be reincarnated. They'd take the Geofronts to the stars, each with a fraction of their people's souls. The Geofronts carried with them the foundations for life: amino acids, proteins, all of it.

And then, they would wait. They'd wait billions of years for life to evolve from there, for something intelligent enough to take shape. Then, their program would resume: they'd imbue those dumb apes with souls and hijack those animals' primitive lives to carry out this mad survival plan.

Madmen—all of them. People die all the time. It's just a matter of when and how. To force yourself into an alien shape—a container? The idea alone made me shake.

I wasn't the only one who felt this way. Some in the room were skeptical, even hostile. One man, who looked like Professor Fuyutsuki, stood up to pose a question to us, saying,

"You're asking us to accept artificial reincarnation into bodies we can't even imagine right now." He shook his head, baffled with the very concept. "Why would we want to accept that? Many of us have lived good lives. Save the children and those who are absolutely needed to carry on our people. Have you seriously considered how many more Geofronts could be built before we run out of essential supplies?"

Horaki glanced toward my end of the table, and Ayanami rose. "Seven, maybe eight Geofronts," said Ayanami. "That's the best we can do, but Councilor, this question isn't about mathematics, is it?"

At that, the man looking like Fuyutsuki stood there for a moment before nodding in agreement.

"I didn't think so," said Ayanami, who circled the table to stand with Horaki. "This is about something else: about what we want our future to be. I want us to have a future. I want all of us to have a future."

She paced about the projector, peering at a projection of a globe. "I've been around the world," she said. "I've visited people affected by the burst." She put her finger into the projection, touching one spot, one location. "I've been here," she said. "There were some nice people there. I met a family with a boy who wants to be a sprinter." She faced the crowd again. "They know what's going on. They know that, if there's a lottery, there's a low chance they would be saved. They asked me if there were a chance their son could be saved anyway. 'So he can grow up and run,' is what they asked me."

She pressed a hand to the side of her head, as though the memory were a migraine she couldn't shake. That let the crowd chew on the story for a moment, too.

"I don't know how you feel about that," said Ayanami, still holding her head, "but I can't accept that. I can't stand it."

She let out a breath, collecting herself, and put her hand to her side. She froze the room with a hard stare.

"And I won't stand _for_ it, either. I refuse to ask people to lay down and die for their children. What Eisheth and Adam have described to you—our proposal—is a fair solution. It is as fair as it possibly can be. Nearly everyone will bear an equal burden, and an equal chance of living on."

" 'Nearly'?" said Fuyutsuki.

Ayanami held out a hand to Horaki, who handed over the remote. Ayanami flipped through several projections until a white giant with seven eyes appeared on the hologram.

"Someone has to be the shepherd for the souls of our people," said Ayanami, "in bodies that can last the test of time—as long as it takes. These people—these volunteers—should have an understanding of basic metaphysics and metaphysical biology, but more importantly, they should be ready and willing to wait through the long night for this plan to go through."

She waved her arm toward the table.

"Like we are," she said.

My heart clenched. All I could think was _no, no, no_.

But that was so very like her, wasn't it? As much as it pained me to admit it, it made sense. Even before she ever heard the name _Rei Ayanami_ , she was like that. She did something she thought selfless or necessary, with no regard to how it might hurt herself—or even her friends and family around her. What did they think about that? Had she even asked them?

No, I didn't think she had. Ayanami wasn't one to ask before she made sacrifices. When you believe in something like that—when every cell in your body calls on you to act, to do something—you don't ask other people. You tell them you're going to do it, and only after you're done do you ask them.

You ask for their forgiveness.

Ayanami asked for no forgiveness that day, even as the rest of the politicians and scientists hotly debated the proposal. Eventually, they sent us away to deliberate in private. I'm sure it was important to them, even though I already knew what their decision would be.

With the meeting closed to outsiders, the seven of us went back down on the elevator and toward the Geofront's exits. I followed Ayanami and Horaki the way we came; Kaworu and the others went their separate ways.

Ayanami, for her part, was much quieter than on the way in. She took the lead, standing two steps ahead on the escalator.

"I think that went well," I offered at one point, peering around the side to catch a glimpse of her face.

"Mm, yes," she said, smiling slightly. She looked back at me with the corner of her eye. "I think so, too. I hope so. It's what we need, to give everyone a chance. I hope they can understand that."

"They're not happy about handing things over to us." Horaki stared up the escalator intently. The wheels were turning in her mind. "Even though they should," she said at last. "It's not like we're getting a good end of the deal."

"We're going to help our people survive—all of them," said Ayanami, who looked ahead, too. "What could be more right than that?"

"Saving _everyone_ , including ourselves," said Horaki.

Ayanami rolled her eyes. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?" said Horaki.

"Being super serious."

"Somebody has to balance you out, you know."

"I was super serious earlier!" said Ayanami, who stomped her foot on the escalator step for good measure.

"Yes." Horaki smiled slightly. "I know."

Ayanami laughed—she giggled, even, and she leaned along the escalator railing, letting some of the weight on her shoulders float away, at least for a time.

And, to tell the truth, I wouldn't have minded to see her like that every once in a while. If I'd had that chance before, I would've enjoyed it.

But Horaki didn't let me enjoy it then—not for long, anyway. She came down one step of the escalator. She touched my shoulder and whispered into my ear. "Don't let that fool you," she told me. "Lilith knew full well what it meant to become a Seed of Life—to give everything of herself for her people."

I sighed, and I looked up the escalator, at Ayanami. "I know she does," I whispered. "I've seen it."

"You have, haven't you?" said Horaki. "That's good. You should learn from the past, Shinji Ikari."

I jolted. I did a double-take. I tried to look back at Horaki, but the escalator was gone. The inside of the Geofront was gone. I was on my own two feet, with hard, immobile sidewalk beneath me. The only thing that moved was the march of demonstrators on the road: they circled National Square with their signs bobbing up and down as they walked. The lead demonstrator kept the crowd chanting blasphemy.

The only being in front of me was the ghost who wore a satin hood.

"You should learn from the past," she said, facing me—though her eyes were covered by the hood. "Seven hearts burned for their brothers and sisters, but all this?" She waved with her sleeves—her hands weren't visible. She waved at the earth and sky. "This didn't fill the holes in their hearts. You're the same, Shinji Ikari."

I looked past the stranger. Ayanami was there, too, watching from a distance, but she was silent. She let me refute the stranger on my own terms.

"I'm trying not to be," I said at last.

The stranger pursed her lips, and she nodded once in deference? Or was it respect?

"You can try," she said, "for all the good it will do, but this is how you were made, how the people who made you were made." She turned her head slightly, indicating Ayanami behind her. "People like Lilith. You can try to overcome that, but you shouldn't be surprised if you don't succeed."

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I glanced at the fence—at the black fabric that let only sporadic dots of light come through. I cleared my throat, and I said,

"I don't believe—"

But she was gone. _They_ were gone—Ayanami and the stranger both.

#

I headed directly home after that, putting the demonstration of Seele sympathizers and visions of… _whatever_ that was behind me. We had Keel Lorenz. It was our job to look forward, to make sure those who identified with him couldn't hurt us, and to prepare for whatever else might come.

I headed to the kitchen, and I started laying out some onions and radishes for a meal. I turned on the TV while I worked. Asuka would be home within the hour.

But what I heard on the TV made my heart sink.

You see, Ayanami showed me something—and it wasn't just her past. It was a lesson to learn, a lesson she and the hooded stranger both thought important: when you act rashly to plug a hole in your heart, you might stop the bleeding there, but something else might fail instead.

Lilith and her colleagues saved their people, but did they think their sacrifices through? Did they sacrifice themselves for the right reasons? Were their actions truly for the best?

And what about me, or Misato? I helped capture Keel Lorenz, but did I really stop to consider everything that might result from that? Misato sent me there to make the world safe again, but did we actually accomplish that?

No, we hadn't. We acted, and we got Lorenz, but there is a saying, right? "Cut the head of a hydra, and two shall take its place?" I don't like to think that evil can never be extinguished, but one must be careful. If you're going to cut the head of a hydra, you should cauterize the wound when you're done.

Misato and I hadn't done that. When I got home and saw the news, I finally understood.

"Late this afternoon," said the presenter on the TV, "officials at the Japanese Consulate in Myanmar confirmed that Kyoji Ishikawa, an employee at a consulting firm in the protectorate, was arrested by Chinese authorities on charges of espionage."

#

After dinner, Asuka and I watched the news for a time.

The prime minister promised great intelligence from Lorenz, and that interrogators would be working "day and night" to gain information that would dismantle Seele.

Seele put out a propaganda video claiming that even without Lorenz, they would show us the true way and all that.

But what struck me most was footage of SDF guards standing watch at National Square. Two guards stood at the gate with their rifles strapped over their shoulders. They faced straight ahead in the fading light, as rows of protestors decried them and hurled all manner of insults at them.

After all, those men were trained to stand there and be unflinching.

And there was no shortage of pundits to talk about the arrest of Kyoji Ishikawa. Would Japan offer a swap of spies to mollify the Chinese? Would they disavow him and leave the man to face trial and possible execution to protect a covert operation?

I left Asuka to work and watch the news on her own, and I retired to the bedroom once more. I turned the light on at my desk. I drummed my fingers on the desk's edge for a time.

I picked up the phone. I dialed, but the answer on the other end wasn't what I was looking for.

"Hello, you've reached the private line for General Katsuragi," the machine said in Misato's voice. "I'm not home right now, but you can leave a message after the tone, and the next time we talk, I promise you more—"

I hung up. Where exactly would she be at that time of night?

I went to the closet and put on my jacket. There was a torrent coming down out there, after all. Asuka wondered where I was going. I told her I left something at the base.

" 'Something,' huh?" was the response she gave me. She closed the lid on her laptop, staring at me. "Is that it?" she asked.

I nodded, and I said I'd call her when I got there.

She frowned, but she angled the laptop lid back open and said nothing more. Only then did I breathe again. Only then did I dare to go.

And so I headed out, down the elevator and through the lobby to street level, and like the SDF members at Ground Zero, I braved the darkness, too.

#

It's very different, going to the base at night.

In peacetime, the base was like any other office building—putting aside that it was underground, of course. A few people might've been working overtime, and there was a small team on watch in the control room, keeping the lights on and the coffee makers hot, but beyond that, it was quiet. The hallway lights hadn't dimmed, but when you can hear your own footsteps echoing, you just know you're far, far more alone than you should be.

I stopped by the general's office. The lights were off on the lobby—no doubt the secretary had long since retired for the day—but there was a glow from underneath Misato's door. I knocked.

A pen was put down, and four quick steps signaled the occupant's approach.

"Shinji?" She blinked a couple times. "What are you doing still here?"

I could've asked her the same question, but I let it be. I told her I'd accidentally taken a sensitive file and needed to return it, and I'd "just noticed" that her light was on. "Still got work to do?" I asked her.

Misato sighed at that, and she started rubbing her neck. "It's about that Naicho agent," she explained to me. Ishikawa's capture was still rippling through the Japanese government, and Misato had no kind words for the Chinese about it. "They're being remarkably petty, considering we did them a favor."

"Anything you can do to get him out?" I asked her. "He seemed decent."

She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. For the moment, it was up to the diplomats, but Misato wasn't confident they'd make much headway. "They'll soon realize the Chinese aren't interested in an amicable solution…" Misato folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. "Then it'll be my turn to negotiate." She smirked. "And we'll put the screws to them; don't you worry. I'll see to that."

I peered around her. There was a cup of soup steaming on the desk's corner. A stack of papers went half a meter high. Misato was more than prepared to spend time getting Ishikawa back or sticking it to the Chinese. She was there, wasn't she? She was there to fight the good fight and all that.

"Maybe you could stand a break?" I offered.

Misato glanced at her soup cup on the desk corner. "Probably a good idea, right?" She waved me inside. I took the seat across from her, and we talked. We talked a lot, and it was, perhaps, the first long talk we'd had since Instrumentality's end. I learned a great deal about Misato that evening—stuff I never would've imagined before, and I'd known her for almost three years by that point. For the first time, I really saw her as a general. It was easier for me to see that when I wasn't the one she was commanding—not directly, anyway. Before, we'd worked as a team to fight Angels. Here, she had a much larger battle to fight. I saw how that affected her, from the emptiness of her office to how deliberately she stirred her soup.

We talked about matters of little consequence for a time. Misato told me a bit about how interrogations of Lorenz and his men were going. She was a frustrated that they were so tight-lipped, but she took no small amount of glee at the idea of coercing them into spilling their secrets.

"The best part," she told me, "is when you can convince them that telling you something is in their interest. Everybody wants something: fine food, contact with loved ones—something." She pointed a finger at me, as though I were a student who'd do well not to forget. "You give them that. That's your word, after all. But you make sure that whatever you're giving them is a small price to pay—for us, anyway. A bigger price for them." She sat back in her chair and grinned wildly. "And never forget the look on their faces when they realize the price _they_ had to pay, hm?"

She delighted in it. She relished it. Perhaps it's natural, but human beings should not take glee in such things, I think. I would've much preferred to hear that she'd found joy in nighttime drives outside the city, or something to that effect, but that wasn't how she was—not when left to her own devices, anyway.

But, if someone offered her a way out, maybe she would take it. I asked Misato to dinner, and she about dropped her soup spoon.

"Dinner?" she said, laughing in surprise. "What did you have in mind?"

"Just, you know," I said with a shrug. "Something simple: you, me, and Asuka—just like old times. I'll cook."

"Aha!" Misato laughed, and she wagged a finger at me. "That'd be a nice blast from the past, right? But really now, you're adults. Maybe not in the eyes of the law, but you've gone through enough to deserve it. You two don't need a guardian barging in on what you do anymore."

But I didn't accept that. I kept pressing. I said she could make it a date-take Hyuga, say. He was good company, right?

She wasn't biting. She was evasive. She left her spoon in the cup and started scanning through a file folder. "There's really no telling when this will let up," she said.

I scoffed. "How long is that going to be? Months? Years? You can't just work-work-work nonstop until then."

"Of course I can," she said, not even looking up. "I'm a soldier."

She was a soldier. A soldier didn't have time for games. A soldier didn't have time to act out the fantasy of a lovestruck schoolgirl. Those could wait until the war was over.

And I—I just couldn't accept that. I refused to accept it. I rose from the guest chair and I said it right to her face! "Misato," I told her, "you're not alone in this."

She looked at me with a gram of surprise, but she just shook her head. She shook her head like I was a child, and compared to her, I was.

"No, Shinji." She closed a folder, and she opened her arms wide. "Look around," she said. "Is your father here? Is the vice commander here? Or Ritsuko? No, no, and no. They all left. They all stayed in the sea." She put a hand to her chest. "I'm here."

"And so am I," I told her.

"And I'm thankful for that," she said, smiling in gratitude. "But Shinji, there are a lot of people out there who just don't get it yet."

Like the Chinese. Didn't I remember them? Didn't I remember the ambassador's gate I'd started breaking down with my own hands? The Chinese government didn't take the threat _seriously_. And they weren't the only ones.

"There are a lot of people out there who'd rather bury their heads in the sand," said Misato. "They're worse than the likes of Seele, and you know why? Because Seele at least understands that what's coming is the apocalypse."

She shook her head and exhaled—a tired, weary response. She took in hand her cross pendant, which had been hanging around the desk lamp. She rubbed her fingers along the bloody spot on the pendant, and she said,

"Don't worry about me, Shinji. You have a life to live. Most of what I once had—that's already been taken away. There's a disease of denial running rampant through this world, and if it comes down to someone like me to spread the cure, that's not such a bad thing, is it?"

"Misato—" I began, but she put a finger to her lips and shushed me.

"You have a life to live," she insisted. "Me? Death has been etched into my mind since I was younger than you. If one of us here has to put their life on hold for this, it should be me, don't you think?"

"And after this?" I asked her. "After the Angels are gone again, what then?"

Misato stared at me for a moment, wide-eyed. She looked around, as though there could be an answer in the walls, but none was forthcoming. Instead, she glanced at the open folder on her desk, straightened herself up to read it, and pretended to begin.

"I'm a soldier," she said, scanning over a report. "I'm just a piece in this game. Who cares what happens to me?"

Who cared indeed?

Let's say there was one person—one person in the whole world who cared what became of Misato Katsuragi. Would that person have left a cup of soup half full to go cold? Would that person keep working at twenty minutes to midnight in a cool, deserted building hundreds of meters underground? Would that person have nothing of personal value on her desk but the pendant that put her on this path oh-so-many years before?

No, not at all. That pendant was stained in her blood, and she kept going anyway. If there were one person in the world who cared what became of Misato Katsuragi, then there's one thing that could be sure:

It wasn't Misato Katsuragi herself.

And if that was how she wanted to be, what could I do to stop her?

#

So I left her there. I left Misato to her work, and I headed home—back along the empty train to National Square and then through the rain above ground. When I got back to our apartment, I flung my jacket's hood back and cast off the water. I hung it up to dry and traded my shoes for slippers, trudging back into the apartment.

The lights were off in the main room, so I went to wash up for the night. I squirted a blob of toothpaste on my brush and did that whole routine. Stroke, stroke, stroke. I bet nobody even thought about that, at the time. Is it really a priority to fight tooth decay when you're fighting a war against Angels for your very survival? Not a chance. It's almost pointless. It doesn't matter, but someone will complain about your breath if you don't.

"Did you get that thing?" Asuka's voice called to me from the dark bedroom. "Or whatever it was."

I put the toothbrush down and leaned with both hands on the counter, bowing my head. "No," I said.

"Was anybody there? Misato?"

"Yes, Misato was there."

"Working, right?"

"Yes, she—" I choked on my words. I shuddered. I put both hands on the counter to support myself.

Sheets rustled in the bedroom, and Asuka climbed out of bed, leaning on the washroom doorframe. Her mouth was slightly open, and she peered at me in the mirror.

"Shinji?"

"Sorry. Misato—she's—" I coughed. "I'm not sure she's doing too well."

"I know." Asuka put a hand on my shoulder. "It's pretty obvious." She smiled sadly. "Come to bed."

"Asuka…"

"What is it?"

I took her fingers in my hand. "How was your mom's birthday?"

Her breath caught, and Asuka took me in her arms, holding me from behind. "Not bad," she said wistfully. "I thought it'd be nice to hold a special dinner."

"You made fish buns?"

Asuka flinched. "No!" she insisted.

I shot her a look, and she glanced away.

"I am going to make something else!" Her eyes wandered about the washroom as she thought. "Something…next year."

"Do you want me to teach you?" I said, chuckling.

She pouted. "You can teach, but I will make something for my mother by myself, when the time comes. Deal?"

"Deal. You want to do that soon? This weekend, maybe?"

"Oh God no. I'm not going near the kitchen for a month if I can help it. The stove is trying to kill me; I'm sure of it."

"It's not alive!" I said with a laugh. "But fine, something else then?"

Asuka cocked her head. "Could go to the arcade. Make it a party—get Nozomi and Hikari, Aida and Suzuhara and his sister. Let's have a good time, right?" She smiled. "Just see people," she said. "See people, and have a good time. We can do that—you and me, and everyone else."

I nodded. "Thank you, Asuka. I needed that."

Asuka leaned in, and she whispered in my ear, "This is what I can do for you, Shinji. It's okay if you need me for that. I'll be here."

She gave me a quick peck on the cheek—just in case I didn't get the message.

"Now finish what you're doing and get to bed, huh? It's late."

I started washing the toothbrush in the sink, and Asuka headed back to the bedroom.

"Oh, and Shinji?" she called back.

"What?"

"Was I right about this, or was I not?"

I froze. "Does this count for that?"

"It does."

I winced. "Do you want to tonight?"

"I've got to be at the base early. You?"

"Same."

"Tomorrow, then. Make sure you clean that thing right this time. Last time it was your turn, I found _stuff_ on it and had to fix that before we got started."

I hung my head at that. "I'll take care of it!"

"Good."

I took one look in the mirror, eyes wide, and I squeezed out another dollop of toothpaste to brush my teeth again.

#

The next day, Asuka and I arrived at the base around 0630, and already the general was in her office working, with her secretary on duty and all.

Truth be told, I spent most of the day looking forward to the evening. We had more pilot training to do—both with Nozomi and with the backups—and I struggled to stay with it at times. I made some mistakes, like telling the Mitsuzuri boy to attack his simulation target instead of evade. I could write that off as a worthwhile test, sure, and no one else seemed to mind too much.

You don't have to be perfect in this line of work. We strove to be good and be right, but you could spend a lot of time in search of perfection and not get anywhere. And after all I'd done, do you think a day of being a little _off_ could be excused?

What I was looking forward to—aside from Asuka exercising her privileges for being right—was a trip to the arcade with Nozomi.

I stopped by the arcade to make arrangements for our party. I wasn't sure if the arcade would accommodate us because, in that time, the arcade was very popular. I'm not really sure why. You wouldn't think it'd make sense for people to throw money away regularly at those rigged UFO capture games, or for precious materials and electricity to be spent on running an arcade or making the prizes.

But in spite of the facts, I'd heard from Kensuke that the place was often packed, and that day was no exception. Students from a half-dozen schools seemed to make the arcade a second home. Adults stopped by, too, either to accompany children or to try their hand at the games themselves. I remember one man in rags trying desperately to win some snacks from the claw machine. He did win, on his third try, and the look on his face as he bit into the candy bar was one of sweet relief. The place was a salvation, in that sense, and the spectacle of flashing lights and triumphant chimes gave the arcade a friendly feel. It was, perhaps, the only place in Tokyo-2 that really felt _alive_.

Then again, maybe it's telling that the only such place was one populated by virtual characters and artificial voices.

But for an afternoon, I thought it'd be a nice reprieve, and it gave me a chance to spend time with Nozomi again.

Nozomi, for her part, seemed a little less than at ease amid all the flashing lights and the cacophony of sounds. Every time something unexpected happened, she twitched or jumped in surprise.

"You know, Ikari," she said, steering clear of a game of Mortal Wombat, "I'm not sure arcades are really my thing."

That would've been a shame. Asuka and I had really hoped that it would be fun for her. A party with all of us was, well, long overdue, really.

"Not sure I'm much help for party planning, either," she said, ducking around a server with a stack of pizza boxes. "If you brought me here for feedback, I don't think I have much."

"If you want to go somewhere else, we can," I offered.

"Don't you have a party to plan?"

"Planning can wait if it needs to."

At that, Nozomi cracked a smile. "You're too old for me, Ikari."

I gawked. "Nozomi…"

"I'm just saying, Ikari, if you wanna take a girl on a date, you could ask her where she wants to go." She twirled a pencil between her fingers idly. "And as far as where I would want to go, you still owe me some time as my student."

"I won't miss it this time; I promise."

"You sure?"

I put my hands in my pockets and looked around. "Yeah," I said. "I shouldn't have forgotten in the first place. I let something else get in the way. I'm sorry."

Nozomi sighed and nodded. "Thanks," she said, "and now forget about it. You've got a party to plan, and since I'm already here…" She glanced around the arcade. "I'm gonna scout out some good places for photos. Aida's been doing some of that; I think he'd like it if we had some good positions in mind."

"You're the best, Nozomi," I said, nodding in thanks.

She scoffed at that, and she waved her pencil in mild disagreement as she went off to scout. "Maybe," she said.

I let Nozomi do a round or two around the arcade, and I went back to my own business. I asked the manager about having a small party at the arcade, and he seemed receptive to the idea. All we had to do was pay a small fee in advance. He seemed agreeable enough, but given the cross look he gave to some customers milling about, I can only guess he felt a lot of people came in without spending as much as he would've hoped.

I told the man I'd get back to him about the exact number—we still had to see if Toji would bring his sister—and I left the counter to track down Nozomi. I hoped we'd find a good spot for the party to take place. If games we liked were too far away, it would be inconvenient, but if there were no place to sit and talk while we ate, that'd be even worse.

But as I searched for Nozomi, I overheard a boy and girl at one of the light gun games:

"Okay, when we get to this next part," the boy began, "take care of everything on the right. There will be two zombie walkers, three shooters, and a crane throwing an exploding barrel. Got it?"

"Got it," said the girl, raising the plastic gun's sights to her eye.

The game's next sequence started, and both players sprayed the screen with invisible bullets. The girl, despite her inexperience with this game, handled her assignment well: _bang-bang-bang-bang_. Four shots destroyed the zombie walkers, and she lined up a quick hit to the exploding barrel; it detonated, and a handful of shooters disintegrated in a toxic green flame.

But the boy? He took two claws to the face, and his screen started counting down as it asked for more money.

"What happened?" asked the girl.

"I sucked." The boy dropped the light gun back into its holder with a showy, exaggerated motion. "Damn runners."

"Runners? Why didn't you say that before? I could've helped."

"You would've fallen behind."

The girl fired off three shots, and a behemoth zombie toppled over, rattling the screen as it disintegrated. The stage was cleared, and the game started tallying up the score. The girl took her eye off the screen, shooting her friend a look as she brought the light gun to her waist.

The boy looked aside, hands in his pockets, and said nothing.

#

The party was something welcome to look forward to, but everything else that was going on in the world was not. When I got to my office the next morning, I found out just how bad the situation had become: Misato and the Chinese had resorted to playing an international game of chicken. Misato had arranged for MSDF ships to pass near artificial islands the Chinese had built, deliberately skirting the edge of a disputed territorial waters claim. The Chinese, in turn, had sent more than one naval group right up to Japan's territorial waters. The two sides were intent on daring the other to respond with force, hoping that the international community would side with them as an "innocent" actor in this nonsense.

I can't speak for what the Chinese were thinking, but Misato's reasoning was clear: the Chinese were at fault. If we'd violated their sovereignty, it was for an act in service of mankind, and the Chinese should've been grateful. Instead, they'd abducted one of our people, and Misato wasn't going to let that go, even if it meant going to the brink of war.

"Never forget," she said at one briefing, "if the Chinese attack our forces or violate our territory, they will have more than just SDF to reckon with. The might of a god is on our side."

The Eva. She meant to use the Eva—not to fight a ground war in China, but as a defense, as a weapon of last resort to punish Chinese aggression. She could cloak her intentions in defensive words like "protection" and "deterrence," but even a shield allows a knight to pick fights he might otherwise avoid.

Misato's course was etched in stone, with the grooves filled in with molten steel for good measure. I wasn't the only one who tried to reach her. Asuka spent a good hour at lunch one day trying to shift Misato's thinking. It was no use. The conflict Misato had prepared for seemed inevitable, and she would go into it ready—professionally and personally—to sacrifice whatever was necessary to achieve her ends.

And since Asuka and I had both struck out with Misato, I turned to the only other person who could reach her. As I sat in my office with file folders about Chinese ships and naval helicopters, I said a name out loud, even though no one else was in the room with me.

"Ayanami."

Silence.

"Ayanami," I said again, staring past my computer monitor. "I know you can hear me. I know you're watching."

Nothing. The air was still. A speck of dust floated in front of me.

"Ayanami," I said once more, rising from my seat, "if there is a lesson Misato should learn from you, maybe you need to tell her that. If there's a piece of you that is the same as the Ayanami from before—if you meant to ask her and Horaki and me to come back for something—I think you should follow through with that. Don't let us go the wrong way."

And still, there was only the sound of my computer's fan humming.

I sat back down, sighing, and I closed the folder on my desk to go to the next: a briefing on maritime Eva operations. I flipped open the folder and began, but my eyes didn't process the dry descriptions of military hardware. Instead, a set of words flashed into my mind.

 _I won't abandon you._

I glanced around. There was no sign of her, and yet the impression was clear to me.

And that wasn't the only one.

 _You could destroy yourselves otherwise._

And though I scowled upon understanding that second impression, there was a hint of truth to it as well. I wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but we _were_ sitting on a precipice, and we could easily fall.

A Chinese submarine breached Japanese territorial waters the next day.

#

The Chinese sent a fleet to the edge of the 12-mile limit of Japanese territorial waters. They were done trading provocations and slights; they moved on to demands. They insisted on inspecting Japanese ships for possible smuggling in or out of Myanmar, including weapons or intelligence equipment.

MSDF's fleet went to meet the Chinese, and for 24 hours, the standoff was nerve-wracking. The constant threat of action made us sleep at the base. It meant sending Nozomi out with the Eva to Okinawa and training sessions to play hopscotch on natural and manmade islands. Let me tell you: you do not want to be responsible for keeping an Eva _above_ the surface of the water. You just don't.

For a time, we hoped that these exercises with the Eva would be enough of a deterrent to keep the Chinese in check. If the Eva could deploy to the ocean safely (whether above the surface or below it), then trying to fight against it would be suicide. And if they dared to try anyway, Nozomi could easily cripple any ship.

But part of the battle was playing out in the media, too. The Chinese screamed for all the world to hear. "Look at the Japanese!" they said. "They're ready and willing to use the Eva as a weapon of war against humanity."

Never mind that the Eva hadn't left Japanese territory. And no, we weren't going to go claiming new territory to make that work, either.

Despite all this tension, the two sides held their fire, maintaining a standoff until the other made a mistake. All it would take was the slightest justification, and there would be open war, but without that, no one wanted to look like the aggressor.

The base stayed on high alert throughout this time. Teams of controllers and engineers stood watch in the control room for regular shifts—Asuka and me included. So every four or eight hours, we'd head into the control room and catch a glimpse of the situation: had the ships changed positions since we were last on watch? Were there more of them? Was Nozomi sleeping? Was the Eva ready for combat? Did we need to perform more exercises?

If that sounds busy, it really wasn't. I _wish_ we'd had more to do. If you ran out of tasks, the best you could do was stare at the situation map on one of the front projector screens, wondering if one of those red or blue blips—theirs or ours—would cross over that imaginary line in the sea.

And when that didn't happen, what could we do? We'd go to eat in the officers' mess, with only half the room full. I'd head back to my office to review exercise results, and Asuka would restart one of her experiments. And then at night, we'd sleep on the base, captives to the rumblings of the mountain.

That is until the loudspeaker went off in our quarters.

"Attention, attention. Operations Team One, report to the control room in Building Bravo. This is not a drill. Attention, attention…"

The call went out, and Asuka and I sprang from the bed. We splashed some water on our faces and threw on two sets of clothes that had been draped over a chair. We were out of our quarters inside of two minutes, just in time to join the procession of combat controllers on their way to battle. We filed into line, and when we made the control room, we sorted ourselves among the rows of stations with mechanical precision.

Once everyone was seated, the briefing began.

"Good morning, everyone."

That was Hyuga, standing at his station with a laser pointer and clicker in hand. He clicked the remote once, and the left projector screen at the confrol room zoomed in on the border to international waters. A red blip appeared just inside the line, fading in and out.

"Here's the situation: JDS _Takanami_ detected a probable submarine contact shadowing MSDF Escort Flotilla 6 at 0410 JST. Contact is intermittent; we suspect it's a Type 095 nuclear-powered attack submarine, too quiet for our sonar to reliably detect, and the submarine has not responded to hails."

Hyuga clicked his remote again, and a group of blue blips surrounded the fading red one. "Three MSDF destroyers— _Takanami_ , _Kirishima_ , and _Makinami_ —are firing anti-submarine torpedoes and mines along probable trajectories back across the territorial line, but in all likelihood, the Type 095 will escape if we do not provide assistance."

Another click. A blue wedge zoomed in from the northeast. "Our mission is to catch the Chinese submarine before it can escape to international waters. Unit-14 will deploy aerially with Type Mikasa equipment. Controllers, start on your Airborne Vehicle Attachment and Type Miskasa Equipment checklists. Our target is takeoff from Okinawa by 0430. Let's go!"

Hyuga clapped his hands together, and the room went to work. I put on my headset and pulled up the entry plug feed on my monitor. Nozomi was inside already, holding on for dear life as the Eva contorted and twisted to mount the launching aircraft.

"You look like hell, Ikari!" she cried, gripping the controls like a vice.

I laughed, rubbing at my eyes and blinking, but they came up open and wide. "I'm more awake than I should be at this time of morning." I glanced at Hyuga, then back at her. "Type Mikasa Equipment?"

Nozomi winced. "It's not my favorite thing in the world. It's like fighting through soup."

"I wish I'd used it once, so I'd know what to tell you." I sighed. "But we'll make do, right?"

"It's that, or I go down like a rock."

"Nozomi!"

She shrugged. "I mean, that's _exactly_ what's gonna happen if this doesn't work."

"It's going to work."

"Maybe."

Her weight shifted; the Eva turned over and was encased in the launcher envelope—a black sleeve that kept the arms and legs together in an aerodynamic package. A crane came in to attach the envelope to the launching aircraft. Only once she was secure did Nozomi let go of the controls—and speak again. She looked right at the camera port, saying,

"So this is it? We're going to war?"

I nodded solemnly.

"Then this had better work," she said, "because I sure don't want to be the first casualty."

"We've trained for this."

Nozomi raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, not exactly this, but stuff like this?" I said, wincing.

"Yeah." She looked around me, to the last station at the rear of the room. "The two of us—we've trained together. You and me. Not all of us. You and me."

I followed her gaze to Misato's cubicle, where the general presided over the affair with an array of monitors to advise her.

"Right," I said, nodding. "You and me."

Besides, the general had business of her own to take care of. The Chinese and Japanese defense forces were frantically communicating over the incident. I couldn't hear the other side of these conversations, but Misato's was clear. On the phone with a Chinese general, she said,

"If it's not your sub, then you have no problem with us throwing the world's supply of anti-submarine torpedoes at that thing until it surfaces, do you?" She sat back in her chair with a knowing grin. "…that's what I thought. Let me be clear, General: if someone wants to fight with Japan, we will strike back with all due force. Whether that's you or someone else is a matter for us to find out when we force that sub to surface."

With no going back from those words, Misato saw the operation go forward. The deployment aircraft reached the combat zone, and Misato herself ordered the Eva's launch. "Show them we will not back down from our mission," she said, "for all mankind."

The launch envelope separated from the aircraft, and like a missile, Nozomi and Unit-14 shot into the fray. A hundred meters above the ocean's surface, the black casing split apart, and Unit-14 dove underwater. It sank for a few moments, but then—

KA-WHOOSH!

The sound echoed through the entry plug, and Nozomi's body slammed against the back of her chair. Two jets of pressurized water boosted Unit-14 forward, into the dark sea.

"This is not ridiculous," said Nozomi as she worked the controls. "This is not ridiculous. This is not ridiculous—"

A fish crashed into the Eva's helmet and bounced off.

"This is goddamn ridiculous!" cried Nozomi, her eyes wide as saucers as she dove through the dark water. "I'm gonna die out here!"

"It's going to be fine!" I said. "Well, I think so."

"You think?!"

Hyuga passed me a piece of paper.

"Ah, Nozomi—waypoint on your display," I said, reading off the note. "Last fix on the submarine. Do you have it?"

Her eyes flickered aside. "Got it. On the way." She shook her head. "This was a terrible idea—trying to dive underwater before dawn. I want you to know that; I want it recorded. I want it played back the next time someone has a bright idea like this, just so everyone knows—"

I winced. "We got it."

"Do you?" she snapped. "Are you sure?"

"Waypoint One ETA is, uh, time plus 03:31. Do you have it?"

Nozomi's breathing slowed, and she wiggled her fingers around the control sticks. "Time plus 3 minutes and 31 seconds here. Okay."

Footsteps behind me. Misato came to my station and peered over my shoulder. "Does she feel the wake?"

"How does it feel out there, Nozomi?"

She grinned. "I've got them. They're mine."

She turned to her right and down, diving deeper. She shot through the submarine's turbulence and heated wake, stalking it like an African lion after an antelope.

But Unit-14 was nowhere near as stealthy or quiet as a lion on the hunt. The jets were like a heavy metal performance underwater—loud enough for all to hear. The sub turned its rudder hard and tried to evade the incoming Eva. It powered up its engines to full speed, and a pair of torpedoes shot out its aft tubes.

"Jets off!" I cried. "Brace!"

Nozomi stopped in the water. She curled into a ball, turning her back to the torpedoes, and—

Static. The Eva's telemetry went out; the screens pixelated.

"Nozomi!" I shot up. "Nozomi, answer me!"

"I'm here—sorta." The feed came back to life, but the entry plug's running lights flickered in and out, and Nozomi bled from her lip. "That was a hell of a bang."

"Ops." Asuka rose from her station. "We've got damage to the Mikasa neural interlock. Left jet thruster inoperable; right one showing intermittent signal."

"Nozomi," I began, "can you maneuver?"

She put her hands back on the controls and grimaced, but the Eva just spun around in circles. Even then, the right jet thruster cut out now and again.

"Try to limp back to _Makinami_ ; she should be able to recover you," ordered Misato. "Ops, do we have firm contact?"

Hyuga checked on his monitors. "Yes, _Kirishima_ and _Takanami_ have acquired the Type 095. She's steaming at flank speed for the territorial line, but _Kirishima_ has launched her Apaches. The sub is surrounded."

"Get me on the horn," said Misato. "Underwater telephone."

Hyuga nodded, and Misato herself spoke to the enemy.

"Unidentified submarine," she began, "this is General Misato Katsuragi, Supreme Commander of Project Manoah. On behalf of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, we order you to surface immediately and stand down. Failure to do so will be met with complete and total destruction. You have twenty seconds to begin surfacing. Do not keep me waiting."

I took a deep breath and watched the submarine's track on the left projector screen. Even after Misato's message was sent, the submarine stayed on a beeline for international waters.

"So this is it," I said, throwing a pen aside. "This is how we go to war."

"They fired first," said Misato, staring coldly at the screen. "We're justified in doing whatever we want now."

I nodded. That was true; it didn't make it feel any better, though.

The last few seconds ticked away. Hyuga touched his earpiece and looked to Misato, who gave a single nod.

"All right," said Hyuga. "Envoy, notify _Takanami_. We're sinking that boat."

The middle projector screen turned to a night-vision image of the water. The submarine raced for international waters, but the destroyer _Takanami_ and its attack helicopters were on the scene. All they had to do was launch a couple anti-submarine torpedoes, and that would be it. Once Chinese equipment was discovered in the wreckage, there'd be no turning back.

But as the submarine made the border to international waters, _Takanami_ did not fire.

Hyuga sat back down at his station, poring over the information on his screens.

"Talk to me, people," said Misato. "Why is that boat still floating?"

"Control, message from attack helicopter _Takanami_ -H018," said Hyuga. " _Takanami_ is not responding to communications."

"Is she intact?"

The satellite view panned northwest. The destroyer _Takanami_ was a modern naval ship, first of her class, with a large electronics mast, missile launchers, and a 127-millimeter gun near the bow. She was sleek, modern, and alive—alive with infrared signatures all over her length, the signs of her sailors keeping her afloat and combat-ready.

So why were these heat signatures fighting each other?

"We want a visual," said Misato. "How did the Chinese get a boarding party over our water without us noticing? Get _Makinami_ and _Kirishima_ over to assist."

"Envoy, get the Americans on the horn," instructed Hyuga. "We need a visual wavelength satellite image of _Takanami_ 's position."

The communications envoy got on the line, and the last of the three projector screen panels flipped to a globe mockup, with an American satellite coming turning to get an image momentarily.

"Ikari." That was Nozomi, stuck in the flickering light of the entry plug. "What's going on?"

"Can you get to the surface?"

"With or without losing my lunch? I'm going in circles here."

"Any way you can. Something's wrong. Get to _Takanami_."

The satellite image came up a few lines at a time on the right projector screen. The destroyer's electronics mast was bent, and in the glow of the deck lights, MSDF sailors took arms against the boarders.

But those guns were ineffective, for the white, pasty creatures just shrugged off bullets and invaded the sailors' minds with their needle-like fingers.

"Ikari…" Nozomi drew her prog knife. "We've got problems here!"

The walkers. They materialized out of the water—the red, LCL-tainted water. As Nozomi and Unit-14 bobbed out of the water—the green, black, and white Eva looking like a fat, deflated beach ball—the creatures materialized around the Eva. The creatures clung to the Eva's armor. The poked and pried at the Eva's back—where two bulbous buoyancy tanks attached to the Eva's frame.

"Reports coming in from the fleet, Ops," said the envoy officer. "Alien boarding parties attacking all ships within six nautical miles of _Takanami_. _Kirishima_ reports alien forces attacking propellers."

Misato hurried back to her station, taking in the flurry of reports. "All right, let's get _Makinami_ to Unit-14 for recovery. Let her know that 14 is engaged with the Zenunim. _Kirishima_ needs to fight her way to _Takanami_ , and let's get some more air support from Naha." She looked over the whole room. "Buckle down, people. This is far from over."

I got on the headset to the Eva. "Nozomi, you need to get away. Fall back to _Makinami_."

"Fall back?"

She worked the controls wildly. The creatures crawled all over her, and just when she sliced one in two, another alien grew out of the water and took the other's place.

"You got an idea for that?"

"You think they can hang on if you go full thrust?"

"I can't go straight!"

I pressed my palm to my forehead and groaned. "You—you, uh—" I snapped my fingers. "You've got a knife for a rudder!"

Her eyes widened. "You're not serious."

"Do you think I'm joking?"

Mouth half agape, she stuck the knife in the water behind her, and she flipped a pair of switches on the controls, and she hung on for dear life.

KA-WHOOSH! The Eva skipped across the ocean, churning the water into a frothy wake. Some of the creatures lost their grip and disintegrated once they hit the water, but some hung on to hack and pick at the Eva's equipment, and one of those aliens' needle-like fingers jabbed into the Eva's back armor.

"Left buoyancy tank pierced!" one of the controllers cried. "We're not going to be able to dive again!"

Not like anybody wanted to dive right then!

"I'm coming up on _Makinami_ here," said Nozomi, "but nobody's answering me to lower the island."

Unit-14 came up on the destroyer, but though the lights were on, the only sounds from above were the waves crashing against the hull and gunfire. The Eva floated—if you could even call it that—with a heavy list. The jet intake on the Eva's right side was forced out of the water, rendering it sputtering and useless. Nozomi stabbed and kicked away the creatures that harassed her, for that was all she could do.

"What's our time of arrival?" asked Misato. "Unit-14 is going to be a fancy seabed ornament at this rate."

"Aircraft from Naha on station in eight minutes," reported Hyuga. " _Ise_ is scrambling two Seahawks escorting a Merlin with portable flotation, ETA five minutes."

Misato slammed a hand on her desk. "We don't have that much time," she muttered, pressing two fingers against her temple. "Let's get _Takanami_ 's Seahawk over there. Have it strafe the water to try to get Unit-14 some cover."

I took one ear of my headset off. "You're going to have them shoot the Eva?"

"The Eva has an AT field, and its flesh and blood can be regrown."

"Not if Nozomi takes a machine gun round, or if the buoyancy tank is ruptured!"

"I don't see—"

"Control, incoming message from the Chinese," said the communications envoy.

Misato scowled. "What do they want?"

"They want…to assist."

Raising an eyebrow, Misato rose from her station and came around, standing with Hyuga and me. "Assist?"

"They're offering to send boats with marine detachments to fight off the aliens. They also advise running at full steam to make it more difficult for the aliens to board."

"They're being boarded, too?"

"Yes, ma'am," said the envoy.

"We'd have to let their boats close to our ships," noted Hyuga. "What's to stop them from trying to commandeer one of ours in the confusion?"

"Too much of a risk," said Misato. She looked to the communications envoy. "Tell them we decline. We've got this under control."

I shot up from my station. "Misato!"

She glared, folding her arms. "What is it, _Plugcom_?"

"We do _not_ have this under control!" I pointed at the monitor. "Nozomi is about to sink. Help is not going to get there in time. Two ships are overrun by the creatures, and a third is losing power. They're offering to _help_!"

"Are they? Are you sure?" She gestured to the projector screen. "You see that thin line up there? That is the only thing protecting us from them invading with everything they've got. If we give them permission to come across, then the floodgates are open. There's no stopping it. Just because they _say_ they want to help doesn't mean they do! They just fired on Nozomi not five minutes ago!"

"I know that!" I bowed my head, and I hissed, forcing air between my teeth. "I know that, but—" I balled my fist. "Misato, let them show you we're not alone in fighting this war." I looked up to her, and I lowered my voice to a whisper. "You don't have to do this alone. You don't have to shoulder all of the burden. You don't have to carry the memories of the dead like a yoke. You don't have to punish yourself to feel better about still being here while your father and Kaji aren't."

Her eyes flashed. "Shinji—"

"This is what you want, right?" I said, unwavering. "You want them to stand up and do the right thing, don't you? You want them to fight on our side against the enemy—the real enemy—don't you?"

Misato stared at me. Her hand clenched the cubicle divider between my station and Hyuga's. Her knuckles were white and tense. "No," she said at last. "We're not taking that chance. We—"

She stopped abruptly, in mid-sentence. She looked past my station, but there were only an empty cubicle and an aisle there.

"Misato?" I asked, rising, but she raised a hand and silenced me. She looked past the empty cubicle for several seconds, but what she was focused on I couldn't discern. It was as if a gnat were flying around the control room, its pitch so high and faint that only she could hear it.

"Hyuga," she said at last.

"Yes, General?"

"Get the Chinese. Tell them they can send boats only. Our choppers will give escort. If they so much as move a ship one centimeter over the line, sink them."

Hyuga let out a small breath in relief. "Yes, General. We're on it." He nodded across the aisle at one of the officers. "You heard the general, didn't you?" he said.

The officer nodded hastily and got on the radio. Within minutes, a group of Chinese patrol boats journeyed across the line into undisputed international waters. Two went to the aid of _Takanami_ and _Kirishima_. The rest came for the Eva. The Chinese gunners peppered the creatures with barrages of bullets, driving them off the Eva's back, and they threw ropes around the Eva to keep it on the surface, even at the risk of their own boats sinking if it should lose buoyancy. They did this even as the creatures tried to crawl onto their boats. The Chinese lobbed hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the water just to keep the creatures at bay.

And they succeeded. They kept the creatures down long enough for _Ise_ 's pack of three choppers to arrive with large buoys, keeping Nozomi afloat., The Chinese teams boarded _Makinami_ , helping the defenders retake the bridge and the engine room.

"Manoah Base, Manoah Base, this is _Makinami_ ," the radio cried. "The ship is partially secured; the aliens are being driven down toward the lower levels. We've reclaimed the deck and are working to bring Unit-14 in as we speak. Our Chinese…comrades have been a great help. Surprisingly."

The crewmen of _Makinami_ deployed the artificial island—a netting underlain by a half-dozen buoys and crossbeams for the Eva to ride upon—and Nozomi gladly took refuge there. With her engine room cleared, _Makinami_ made full speed away from the battle zone. The creatures in the water couldn't grab on fast enough, and those still aboard ship were cut down and filled in with sand, just in case they had the idea to reconstitute.

The Battle of the East China Sea was a victory after all, just not over the enemy we expected.

And you know what? I think that was far sweeter than the victory we'd hoped for. I know it to be true, for I remember the relief on Nozomi's face when we sent the Chinese back on their way. She sat back in the entry plug chair, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to rest.

I remember Misato's reaction, too, when the Chinese left peacefully. She stood between Hyuga and me, at the divider between our stations, and she said, "Envoy?"

The communications officer met her gaze.

"Get a message the Chinese commander."

"Yes, General?"

Misato pursed her lips for a moment. She stared at the map of Japan and China, and she said,

"Tell the commander we look forward to fighting alongside them."

The envoy relayed the message in Chinese, and Misato went back to her station, hands folded, staring beyond the projector screens, and shortly after came the reply.

"They say, 'Likewise,' General."

At that, Misato dared to smile, just a little.

#

The next day, Asuka and I went to the arcade.

"This thing's gotta be rigged!"

That was Toji. You didn't think Asuka and I went alone, did you?

Toji was locked in an epic battle between man and machine—man and claw machine, that is. His quest to pick out a plush rabbit from the bin had cost him a thousand yen with no end in sight. When the rabbit's head slipped out of the claw's grasp once again, Toji slapped the side of the machine in frustration.

"It's rigged!"

At that, Horaki stepped in. "Maybe it's time someone else had a try?"

"I dunno if both of us should waste our money on this thing…"

Horaki laughed to herself at that. "Humor me, Suzuhara."

Toji made a show of stepping aside, and Horaki put in her coins to start the machine. She guided the claw to a second plush rabbit, further in one of the corners, that sat higher on the prize stack than the first. She pressed a button, and the claw descended, grabbing the plush rabbit in one go.

When the rabbit fell into the award bin, Horaki presented it to Toji. "I believe this is what you were looking for?"

Toji bowed his head, put his hands together, and begged, "No, please, keep it, but teach me your ways, Master!"

Kensuke slapped him on the shoulder. "Man, weren't you going to give that to your sister?"

"It's fine!" Toji barked back. "I needed to win two of them!".

"Two?" At that, Horaki beamed, and she tucked the plush rabbit under her arm. "I see. Well, I think I can help with that. Let's try again, shall we, Suzuhara?"

Kensuke frowned. "But what about the first one? Don't you—"

Toji slapped the back of his head.

"Oh!" cried Kensuke. "I get it!"

The girl beside me shook her head at that. "Now he gets it? Just now?"

That was Nozomi. We sat together at one of the concession tables, just a few meters from Toji, Kensuke, and Horaki—though the din of games awarding prizes and such made it difficult to hear them, sometimes.

"So, Ikari," said Nozomi, "let's see what you have."

What I had was a rudimentary sketch of the arcade. I'd tried to ignore the people, just focusing on the shapes and sizes of the arcade games, the shadows they cast in the overhead lights, and so on, but I wasn't too impressed. The angles didn't all seem right, the sizes were inconsistent with each other, and the lines weren't even straight.

"Hmm." Nozomi tapped her pencil on the side of her sketchpad. "Maybe we should start with something simpler. Just one game, even. Try using short strokes instead of long, straight lines. Do it lightly, so you can connect them later, and no one will really notice."

Short strokes, huh?

I flipped the page and started again, picking out just the claw game's outline. With light, dashed strokes, I put down a rectangle for the box's nearest face.

"Not bad," said Nozomi. "Now, one thing you'll have to keep in mind here is perspective. The sides of the game are angles compared to your viewpoint, and the left side is going to be angled more. But both those sides should seem to angle towards a point straight ahead of you, far into the distance."

She touched her pencil to my page at a single spot near the top middle.

"Try angling them toward that."

I added sets of dashes from the top and bottom of the game's box, the furthest left more angled than the others.

"Good. Now you just connect them at the top and back, and you're getting started."

"I see," I said, frowning. "So to begin, it's all more technical than it is artistic, isn't it?"

"A little bit is, yeah," said Nozomi, going to her sketch. "But once you have a handle of the technical side, you can decide you don't want something photorealistic. You can decide to pretend you're not as good for effect, you know?"

I peered at her sketch. Her technique was usually perfect, but this time, she cast most of the people in the arcade as shaded, undetailed forms. Only Horaki, Toji, and Kensuke had proper faces.

"So this is what it means," I said, "to draw."

"At least to learn," she said.

"Yeah," I said, hunkering down over the sketchpad again. "To learn."

By the end of that hour, I had a decent framework for an arcade game's box, at least. And you know what? I felt accomplished for that. It took work and some trial-and-error, but I did it. It was mine, done with my own hand. And Nozomi and I? We did it together.

But after a while trying that, I got up and went around the arcade for a bit, looking for…inspiration, perhaps. Something I couldn't capture in just a simple arcade box was the lively atmosphere of the place. All the lights and noise made the place feel like a living creature in its own right. Each different section of the place was like an organ, fulfilling its own function and servicing different needs.

"Hey, Shinji!"

A voice called to me from the air hockey tables. Maya waved with one of the knockers in her hand, and her opponent—Aoba—gave me a respectful nod as well.

"It's a wonderful party!" Maya called out.

I waved back to them, and they went about their game. You see, not everybody likes air hockey, but those two did, and that part of the arcade served them.

"Everyone's having a good time, eh?"

And that was Kyoji Ishikawa. His hair was a mess, and as usual, he didn't look serious enough or professional enough to be a spy. If anything, he looked the part of an overgrown child enjoying himself in an arcade. The huge stick of cotton candy in his hand probably reinforced this notion.

"Thanks for the invite," he said, nodding to me.

"I'm glad you could be here," I told him.

The mood was much the same with other areas of the arcade. The shooting games tended to appeal to the SDF types, for instance. I caught Captain Suzuki blasting dinosaurs back to the Jurassic period in one game, for instance. In another part, the SDF members in the party were holding an impromptu tournament of sorts, seeing who could get the high score in the zombie shooter.

Naturally, the last man standing there was the last _woman_ standing.

"You think you're all that? You think you can touch me?"

Bang-bang! Misato disintegrated two zombies without blinking, and as the game tallied up her score for the level, she blew at the tip of the light gun, as though she were an American gunslinger.

"That's right, folks, the general is _in_ , and she's taking no prisoners! Who thinks I'm gonna hit 300,000 points in this game?"

There were some scattered cheers, but Misato scowled.

"Well, then you're wrong because I'm gonna hit 400,000 in the blink of an eye!"

That got more applause, but the cheers were short-lived.

"Sorry, General?" Hyuga cut through the crowd. "Sorry, there's a matter that requires your attention."

The bystanders griped over this, appealing to Hyuga to let it go. "Come on. Can't it wait for a few minutes?" one officer said.

"I'm afraid it shouldn't," said Hyuga. "Sorry."

Misato made an exaggerated sigh. "Someone wanna keep the gun warm for me?"

"I've got it!" Raising a hand, Asuka stepped forward. "Nothing's getting past me, Misato."

Misato presented the orange light gun with a bow. "My game and score are in your hands, Asuka."

"I'll serve them well," said Asuka, returning the gesture.

"Hey, what about the high score list?" asked someone in the crowd.

"We don't need scores to know who's the best at this," said Asuka, keeping the light gun down while a cutscene played. She looked to me. "Shinji! Get over here!"

"Me?" I said.

"Yeah, you! You're done trying to be an artist for a bit, right? Then you're mine now!"

I gave a fake salute. "Yes, ma'am." And I took up the second light gun, saying, "We need to be careful here. Enemies come in from both sides."

"If you need help, yell." She winked. "I'll do the same."

I smiled at that, but a few words caught my ear from nearby:

"…just past Pluto?"

Misato and Hyuga were discussing something, but I couldn't make out the rest. Misato's face was tense, though, and she pressed two fingers to her temple.

"Shinji?" Asuka tapped my arm. "Game's on."

I shot two zombies without even thinking, and I didn't let my eyes wander from the screen for the rest of the game.

Asuka and I only held out for a few more minutes—Misato had advanced deep into the game, and we were both in over our heads at that point. We tried a game of our own, but that didn't go much of anywhere, either.

By the time we were finished, Misato and Hyuga had spread the word for everyone in the party to gather. The remaining members of Project Manoah grouped up in the main dining area for the arcade, and Misato stood on top of a table to address us all. She was glad so many of us had come out for this day—a day of rest and relief after the hardships of an invasion and terror. That we could stand there and enjoy ourselves, even for a brief moment, made us special:

"You're a testament to what makes SDF—and all humanity—great," she said, beaming. "Take pride in that, and remember: though we've faced many tragedies, we've endured. And though our world still needs rebuilding, though we must defend ourselves from those who'd send us back to the sea, I urge all of you to make time for days like these. The fire of duty burns inside each and every one of you." She smiled as she looked over the crowd. "I see it clearly, but make sure you see it in others, too, and don't let it consume you."

I tensed up. I glanced around, but there was nothing out of place. The arcade cabinets glowed, casting the room in an otherworldly light. A few children tried their hands at a claw game.

"Don't let that fire consume you," Misato said again, holding a hand over her chest. "This world is not saved without you to inhabit it, too."

She glanced in my direction, and I nodded to acknowledge her. She smiled, and she said at last,

"Never forget that, everyone. Never."

The general descended to hollers and cheers from the assembled SDF members. And though the party was breaking up, Misato was not yet done enjoying herself. She made her way back toward the zombie shooter game, where Asuka and I had come from. Misato slapped me on the shoulder as she passed me by. "High score yet?" she asked.

I shook my head. We hadn't come close.

"You can't leave without getting a high score," she said, winking. "It's a rule."

I raised two eyebrows. "Is it now?"

She nodded vehemently, and she looked to Asuka. "Can I borrow your man?"

"Only if you can teach him how to shoot," said Asuka.

"Done and done." Misato circled in front of me. "Well, Shinji—what do you say?"

What could I say?

That depended on who was asking. Was she the woman who raised me for the better part of a year, who mothered me when I had neither mother nor father to turn to?

Was she the woman who kept her father's cross on her desk as a constant reminder of something lost?

Was she the woman who wore the cherry blossoms in gold on her shoulders, even in the wee hours of the morning?

Or was she just another woman in an antiquated arcade, searching for solace and companionship in a world that pierced our hearts so often?

I looked around as I tried to decide whether to humor her with another game. After all, I hadn't done too well in my first round. My gaze wandered the room, happening upon the far wall of the arcade. There were glowing figures that didn't belong there—the figures of Ayanami and the stranger in the satin hood.

Their gazes pierced me—even the gaze of the stranger whose eyes could not be seen. Their gazes went right through the holes in my own heart.

It was a sharp reminder, I believe, that such holes should be mended truly, not plugged up with deeds we tell ourselves are for others.

And so, I joined Misato Katsuragi. I joined her because she was all of those things I said before, not just one of them more than the others. She was a mother and a general, an orphaned daughter and a grown woman all in one.

I wanted to see her happy, and not just because it would help her. It made me happy, too.

So Misato and I lined up at the zombie shooter once more, and we went at it for hours. Misato was a much better shooter than I, and we must've spent the first hour just trying to get my posture right for firing a light gun. Even then, we'd get devoured every so often. Those games were notoriously random and unfair.

Maybe it was silly, to put so much energy into an arcade game. It was a momentary respite. It wasn't meant to last. We'd be back at the real war soon enough, after all.

But silly or not, Misato and I kept plugging away, and when the night was done, we left with the second high score.

And I don't regret that.


	7. Black Moon's Arrival

**Black Moon's Arrival**  
 _Chapter Seven_

If you didn't experience it, if you weren't around for it, I wonder—can you imagine something everyone on Earth would watch?

A lot of people might watch a World Cup or a US presidential election, but those events don't interest everyone. They don't even interest most people.

But I haven't yet spoken to someone—if they had a television, or knew someone who owned one, or knew somewhere they could see one—who didn't watch the Black Moon's arrival.

As TV cameras tracked a fireball in the sky, occasionally the telecast would switch to scenes from Japan and around the world. In Tokyo-2, traffic came to a standstill. People stood in the streets—in the middle of the street!—watching the Black Moon's descent on skyscraper video boards. In Los Angeles, Berlin, and London, the scene was the same. For a few minutes, all the world _stopped_ in awe, trepidation, and horror.

I can only imagine what it was like to be there—to stand on the beach at Nigercoil, at the southern tip of India, and to marvel at the fire in the sky.

No one I know was there. Misato didn't dare send the Eva against an unknown threat. Only a few scout cutters from the Indian Navy dared approach the projected splashdown point.

But the Black Moon didn't land there: it hovered over water with supernatural lightness, casting a shadow over the Indian ships.

I've sometimes wondered what those sailors felt as that sphere passed over them and blotted out the sun. Were they afraid? Did they tremble as an artificial mass nearly fifteen kilometers in diameter hovered overhead?

Or were they angry and defiant, manning the cutters' guns and training lead on the enemy?

I don't know if anyone who wasn't there knows the answer, actually.

I've yet to meet any of those sailors.

I doubt anyone has, for once the door to the Black Moon opened…

The beasts of the underworld poured out and melted them all.

#

How do you sleep after something like that?

The reality is that you don't sleep very well.

The next morning I spent most of the wee hours staring at the ceiling above my bed. Every so often, I glanced over at the clock on our nightstand to see what the time was. 3 o'clock passed, then 4, then 5. After a while you wonder where the time went, even though it feels like eternity too. Time still passed. We just weren't doing anything with it.

"This sucks," said Asuka at one point. She pounded her fist into the pillow in frustration, but it didn't do any good. Asuka was more restless than I—she tossed and turned all the time, trying to find some way to sleep. I just lay there, knowing that it was useless.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, it does."

I shut my eyes anyway, but only for a few minutes. 5:00 turned to 5:03-then 5:06, 5:10, 5:15…

So the minutes went until 5:30. The alarm went off for about a half-second before my finger was on it and our attempt to sleep was over. We were up.

Lights came in with the flick of a switch—not that there was much to see in our base quarters. The ceiling was just generic, speckled tile panels.

Clothes? No issue. Mine were folded up at the desk, and Asuka had a hanger set up with brown pants, a sweater, and a cleaned laboratory coat. We cleaned our teeth in a flash and were out of the room by 5:32.

Our first stop was the officers' mess. Breakfast was already on the table when we got there, with eggs, natto, miso soup, rice, and tofu all available, plus a few SDF mess staff available to cook eggs or tofu for you on the spot. Far from a pleasant sit-down breakfast, though, it was more of a quick stop: officers were constantly in and out of the mess at various times. Hyuga himself stopped by only for a piece of toast and coffee. He shot us both an apologetic look before leaving his cup at the head of the table.

"Better to be early, right?" said Asuka between bites of scrambled egg.

"Yeah," I said, nodding, and like the rest of the officers and civilians, we made quick work of our breakfast, too.

Our rushed morning's final destination was the control room. At 15 minutes to the hour, it was only partially staffed, with positions sitting open and staffers filing in and out with paperwork, reconnaissance, and other material.

I dare say the only one who didn't seem rushed or hurried to get ready was the commander herself: Misato sat back in her high chair, eyes shut and breathing slowly, but as soon as I sat down, she said,

"Are you ready to save the world, Mister Ikari?"

And yes, she did say _Mister_ , in English. I don't know why, but it stunned me long enough to be caught by Misato and the one eye she opened to look at me.

"Well?" she said. "Are you?"

"That depends," I said, putting on my headset. "What are we up against?"

Misato sighed at that, looking aside. "An unfair fight—what else would it be? Recon's on your desk."

I scooted forward and flipped through the folder on my desk. I saw the photos. I glimpsed the enemy and read what it was capable of.

I shut the folder and hissed. "Does she know?" I asked, glancing over my shoulder.

Misato nodded. "She's not happy."

"She usually isn't."

"She's less happy than usual."

Sighing, I typed at the computer in front of me, logging into the communications system.

"Shinji."

"Yes?"

"Stay cool, now."

I smiled to myself. "You're setting a good example there."

"It's something I'm trying to learn."

I peeked over my shoulder, but the general in green had her eyes closed again. She nodded with her breath steady as the time to launch ticked away.

That couldn't be said for our pilot. I brought up the entry plug camera, and Nozomi was contorted over the entry plug's seat like a gymnast trying a surreal trick.

"Be glad you never had to do this, Ikari," she said.

"Are you hanging in there?" I asked.

She huffed at that. "I'm hanging from something all right."

I glanced at the feed from an exterior camera: Eva-14 was clamped to the belly of a jet airliner. At least it wasn't too uncomfortable for Nozomi—in air launch configuration, the entry plug seat was rotated to keep the blood rushing from her head. Still, just knowing you're strapped to the belly of an aluminum bird isn't the most comforting thing in the world.

"Sorry," I said. "Let's go with, uh, how are you holding up?"

"I'm not holding up. I'm being held up."

I raised both eyebrows and stared at her. "Nozomi."

"Sorry, just a little worried about this I guess." Nozomi sighed, and she started looking forward again. "Have you seen the briefs, Ikari?" she asked.

I nodded, averting my gaze.

"You got any ideas?"

"I don't, really."

"Big help," she said, huffing. "Why's that?"

"Usually," I said, "we outnumbered the Angels when we fought them."

"Fair." She pulled herself up in her seat, and she grasped the controls, ready for action. "You ready?"

"Nope, but I'll try anyway."

She huffed again, breaking into a wry smile. "I've heard of worse plans."

We said nothing more for a time, not until Eva-14 flew over the target.

The place was Ho Chi Minh City. A coastal town, Ho Chi Minh City was a prime target for the enemy. The walkers—those ghastly, nigh-unkillable beasts with needle-like fingers—had materialized from the ocean and pushed into the city. They liquefied civilians one at a time, and all it took to dissolve a man was a stab to the head, held long enough to torment the victim until he or she gave in. They were like raging bulls, and every man, woman, and child in their way may as well have been wearing red.

That's not to say no one tried to put the bulls down. The People's Army rolled into town from the north, and as sectors of the city fell, the PAVN resorted to bombarding the city with artillery. Nothing short of obliterating the enemy would do—otherwise, they would just regenerate and come back fighting—so the PAVN made the city burn. In some places, they didn't even bother waiting to hear all the civilians had escaped or been taken. A dark haze hung over the city, with fires starting at the water and petering out further north.

Yet where men dared make camp to rain fire and metal on the enemy, there was no true safety.

Why, you ask?

Because an Angel came after them.

It was like a snowflake, or a fractal: a repeating, geometric pattern branched out from its center, shrinking with each iteration so that the very edge of the Angel was really an infinite number of smaller branches tapering out, each built on top of another. The Fractal Angel floated over the northern suburbs of the city, gutting buildings, artillery, and tanks without truly touching them. It just floated nearby and cut anything in the vicinity in two.

The Angels had come again, and there was nothing else to do but rush headlong into battle and hope for the best.

"Separation in ten, nine…," one of the controllers announced.

If the enemy loomed on our doorstep, our only option was to take the fight to them before they breached the gate.

"Eight, seven, six…"

Standing at his station, Hyuga counted down to separation. Nozomi Horaki flew in Eva-14, latched to the back of a cargo plane. She hung on for dear life, and all of us—all humanity—clung to our hopes with her.

"Five, four, three…"

From Misato, who sat at the rear of the control room floor, overseeing its every move; to Asuka and the gaggle of scientists and engineers monitoring the Eva's heartbeat, nerve impulses, and more; and to me in my stuffy cubicle, with just a few monitors around me and file folders laid out like a photographer's portfolio.

So we had gathered—dozens of us, maybe fifty in all—to try to save the world.

"Two, one, separation!"

The cargo plane dove down, and Eva-14—wielding a black airfoil on each arm—glided over water to the battle site.

What awaited the Eva was shrouded in smoke. A city by the ocean burned, and though Nozomi couldn't see around the smoke, our satellites could. As the Eva flew toward battle, new fires broke out in the city every few seconds, for a constant barrage of small explosions peppered the beach and the streets nearby—not to destroy the buildings or the people.

You see, there were no more people left there. There were only those _things_. The bulls ran the streets, as it were. That's what the bombardment was meant for. It was the only thing that could slow them down. It may have kept the walkers at bay, but the Fractal Angel was undeterred: it flew over the ground with supernatural flight, and as it did so, it cut anything and everything beneath it. Buildings? Gutted. Tanks? Split in two. Artillery pieces? Mangled beyond all recognition.

So you see, when Nozomi and Eva-14 emerged from the cloud of smoke over the city, when she sighted the Snowflake Angel in the distance, she banked the launch envelope's airfoils, turning her toward the Angel.

But as the Angel helped the walkers invade the city, the Angel had help for it, too.

THUD! Nozomi rocked in her seat, and the Eva pulled down on one side, tilting off course.

"What was that?" I cried, rising from my seat. "Nozomi!"

She winced, and she popped the prog knife through a slot in the launch envelope.

"It's hanging on to my back…"

 _It_ was a white, leathery-winged creature, and there were many more like it. Unit-14 flew through a flock of them, and they didn't "fly" so much as spin to maintain altitude. These three-limbed creatures floated like frisbees, with each limb holding the fleshy part of an adjacent wing to form a disc.

Only when one landed, like one did on Unit-14's back, did we get a good look at its face: its three-eyed face with gnashing fangs.

The creature clung to the launch envelope's right wing, and no matter how Unit-14 twisted and stabbed at it, the beast wouldn't let go.

"Nozomi, hard impact!" I said. "Release!"

"Urgh." Nozomi jammed a switch on her controls, and the launch envelope blew apart. She curled the Eva into a ball, grabbed the levers tightly, and—

Ka-PANG! Unit-14 skidded on the soft ground, rolling along the side of a road. It smashed into a two-story building and stopped halfway through the structure, lying in a heap of splintered wood and shattered glass.

"Okay…" Nozomi slid back into her seat, pressing a hand to her chest where the restraints had caught her. She winced. "That sucked. Can we not do that again?"

There was a rumbling beneath the Eva's feet. Broken light fixtures snapped off the ceiling and fell to the ground.

"Ops, pattern white signal is closing on Unit-14's position," said one of the controllers.

I pressed down hard on the transmit switch on my headset. "Nozomi, second Angel is coming your way!"

The Eva—big, round, and lumbering as it was—pulled itself to its feet. "It's underneath me right now," said Nozomi, as the Eva swayed to keep its balance, "isn't it?"

I looked over the wall of my cubicle at the detection controller, who nodded twice, grimly.

"You're not going to let that get in your way, are you, Nozomi?" I said.

She smirked at that. "Nope."

The Eva bolted. It dashed over the soft, wet ground, making a beeline for the Snowflake Angel. As the Eva kicked up divots and left gashes in its steps, Nozomi bared her prog knife and rushed past the front line of artillery pieces. Soldiers and vehicles alike scampered out of her way.

But the ground quaked and trembled before Unit-14, and from the depths of the earth emerged the second Angel: a giant worm. It slithered out of the ground and wrapped up Unit-14 the way a constrictor might kill a rabbit or a hen. Three times the size of the Eva, the Worm Angel wrapped Unit-14 up and had room to spare to press its mouthparts against the Eva's AT field. Those mouthparts had several independent rings, each spinning opposite the other, and together, they drilled into Unit-14's AT field, shedding bolts of energy as they ripped the AT field apart.

"Ops," said the detection officer, "pattern red is retreating, but S2 engine output is increasing."

"Ops," said Asuka, "Unit-14 is showing one AT field layer breached. Synch rate cut to 50%. Significant stress on the left ankle and ribcage. We've got to get her out of there soon."

Hyuga looked back, to Misato, but the general shrugged her shoulders. "Your show, Major," she said, "but I'd consider getting her out of that pickle before worrying about what the first Angel is doing."

Hyuga nodded at that, and he tapped his fingers on the top of the cubicle wall.

"All right," he said, "Shinji, break out the emergency maneuvers. We can't let Unit-14 become compromised in this position."

I got on the radio. "Nozomi, what can you do to break free?"

"From this position?" Nozomi swayed left and right in her seat, but no matter how she angled herself, the Worm Angel's body blocked her view. "Is that a serious question?" she asked.

"What about the—the, uh—" I frowned, and I tapped the side of my head with a pen. "The Cyclops Maneuver?"

The Eva twisted and shuddered; the Worm's grip tightened, and Nozomi grabbed her wrist, wincing. "I'll—" She bit down on her lip. "I'll face up—just try to get it to back off. A direct attack could backfire, right?"

"Yeah, I agree."

"Okay." Nozomi nodded, and she started breathing more heavily. "Let's do it. Have them dial it up. Are we good?"

I looked to Hyuga, but he didn't seem to be on board: his eyes were narrow and his jaw clenched. "That's dangerous at this range," he said.

"She can pull it off. We've practiced it more than enough."

He sighed with his mouth closed and stared at the middle screen on the wall, on which Unit-14 was having the life squeezed out of it.

"All right," he said, announcing over the communications loop for all to hear. "Cyclops Maneuver. Let's go."

The room erupted with a flurry of chatter between controllers, but one voice stood out over the rest: Asuka's.

"Increasing plug depth," she said, standing over the virtual gauge on her monitor. "110% normal depth, 120%…"

"Gah!" Nozomi convulsed. Her hands clenched the controls, and a piece of plastic failed under that force, cracking along a seam.

"Is it bad?" I asked, rising.

"It's like—" She was hyperventilating. "It's like getting trapped in quicksand!"

"That's because you _are_ getting trapped," I said, keeping my eyes on the entry plug feed. "The Eva has you. Do you feel her? She's speaking to you. She speaks to you, and you don't even know what she sounds like because she sounds like you. You sound like the Eva in your mind, and she sounds like you. Right?"

She went strangely calm then. She stared right at the camera, eyes wide.

"We sound the same." Her eyes flickered away and stared into space. "We are the same?"

I bowed my head, let out a breath, and stared at my desk as I opened the radio line again. "Yes, you are the same. And it—it hurts, doesn't it? It hurts to be together, and what the Angel is doing hurts, too." I peeked up. "Right?"

The Worm Angel's grip tightened further, bending the Eva's arms away from its body, yet Nozomi didn't react immediately. She just sat a little more upright in her seat and cast her arms away from her, like the Eva's, as though connected to the creature through a puppeteer's strings.

"We don't want this to hurt anymore." Her eyes narrowed, and her whole body trembled. "No more."

"Do you see what's hurting you?"

She nodded.

"Make it go away."

Nozomi set her sights on the Worm Angel, and—

TCH-CHEW!

A light blasted through the Worm's body; it shot across the whole battlefield and cut through the haze of smoke above. The Eva's eyes—all six of them—glowed a bright and dangerous red.

Though its armor charred from the blast, the Eva stepped through the hole in the Worm's body on its own two feet, grabbed the severed tail of the Worm, and promptly started smashing the Worm's head part with the bleeding tail. It bashed the enemy a hundred times over in seconds, attacking with inhuman speed: its arms blurred, and Unit-14 panted and growled with an animalistic heaving.

"Wake up, Nozomi!" I cried. "I have some graphite pencils for you! Graphite! Graphite!"

"Graphite sucks!" She shook herself and slapped her cheek, shaking off her trance. "It sucks! Do you hear me?" Her body lost its tension, and she sagged over the plug controls, panting. "They suck, right?" she said, laughing to herself.

"Yeah," I said, smiling in turn. "They suck. Good work, Nozomi."

"It's not time for 'good work' yet." Misato rose, leaning over her desk to supervise the room. "What's the story with the first Angel?"

The Fractal Angel had retreated about a kilometer and a half from Nozomi's position, but it had stopped right there, on the outskirts of town. "S2 engine output is 220% of baseline and rising, and the Angel's AT field wavevector is fluctuating," one of the controllers explained. "It could be an inversion."

"A wavevector inversion?" Hyuga stormed over to the controller's station. "Are you sure?"

"No, sir, that's the worst case," said the controller, pointing with her hand at the monitor's readouts. "I can't tell if an inversion is likely, but it's _possible_ , and at this range and S2 engine output level—"

"Then Nozomi is goo," muttered Hyuga. He balled his hand into a fist. "Shinji, get her to that Angel. We're running out of time."

"Nozomi." I pressed the earpiece so hard it hurt. "Get to the Fractal. Waypoint's on your screen. Go, now!"

Unit-14 dashed across the soft land near the river delta. It ran on all fours like a bear, and the ground rumbled with each of the Eva's heavy strides.

But the Eva wasn't the only beast to roam the city outskirts. A brown tendril shot out and grabbed Unit-14 by the ankle.

"Oh no you don't!" Nozomi sliced the tendril clean, but though the Eva picked itself up from the ground, it had already lost time: the Worm Angel was in pursuit. Shorter and stubbier than it had been before, it was no less quick to slither and crawl over the muddy ground, using its tendrils to fling itself forward when needed.

"Don't let it slow you down," I instructed over the radio. "It's a distraction. Get to the Fractal!"

"Total wavevector inversion!" one of the controllers cried. "S2 engine output at 1000% baseline!"

"All right," said Misato, sitting forward from her seat above the control room. "Asuka, get Captain Ibuki on the horn."

Asuka typed at her console, and she unplugged her headset. "You're on, Misato."

"Ibuki," said the general, "what is the minimum safe distance for Unit-14?"

"We're working on that right now, Control," said Maya. "We have—let's see, safe distance for AT field inversion at 100% baseline power is 800 meters, and the distance doubles for every factor of four in power above that. 1000% should be…about 2.5-kilometer blast zone."

"1600% baseline now," said the detection controller.

Hyuga covered his microphone. "Control, I think we have to assume the Angel's goal is to liquefy the whole city. It's not going to settle for taking out a handful of city blocks."

Misato narrowed her eyes, staring at the front screens. "Is she going to make it?"

Unit-14 batted away another pair of tendrils as the worm gave chase. It hopped over two-story buildings, collapsing the ground behind them as it ran.

Nozomi set her sights on the Fractal angel, which sat unnaturally on a point of its spiky body pattern, but the Angel glowed, brimming with energy. Its light cast shadows across the cityscape and blinded me even through the entry plug camera.

"100,000% baseline!" cried the detection controller.

The Worm Angel burrowed into the ground.

"Nozomi, get down!" I yelled.

Unit-14 skidded to a halt. It curled into a ball, and—

The light exploded. A wall of glowing octagons held between Unit-14 and the blast wave, but overwhelming light surrounded the Eva, searing it from all sides.

"That's enough!"

Misato rose, and she looked to the ceiling.

"We're not losing Unit-14 today, not on my watch. Rei!"

The room went quiet, save for Nozomi's struggles against the blast.

"Misato," I stammered, "Ayanami is—"

"Here."

It was a soft, quiet voice, and yet it felt as though it could be heard no matter how far you were away from it.

Something looking like Rei Ayanami stood at the front of the room, just underneath the center projector screen. Her head was in line with the image, and yet it didn't cast a shadow. Her whole body was translucent and shimmered with an ephemeral glow.

"My God," cried Asuka, "the geist is alive!"

Ayanami's eyes flickered to Asuka, who shrank and turned aside in her seat, but the two didn't exchange words. Instead, Ayanami met Misato's gaze. "What do you want, General Katsuragi?" she asked, her stare impassive and steady.

"Evacuate Unit-14 to safety," said Misato. "You can do that much, can't you?"

"And give the enemy the power to do the same, or worse?"

Misato barged down the central aisle of the control room, standing face-to-face with Ayanami. "That's in the future," she said. "This is right now. You asked me to do this. I'm asking you for one thing now."

"One act," said Ayanami. "That's all I will do for you."

"That's all you'd give us?"

Ayanami looked away—meeting my gaze. "That is all that can be afforded," she said.

She closed her eyes, and two of the projector screens went blank: the entry plug feed, along with plots and graphs of telemetry, went out for five full seconds.

And then…

"Control," said the telemetry officer, "we have reacquisition of signal from Comm Relay Nagano."

The center and right screens flickered back to life. The Eva was still alive, and the view from its eyes showed a mountainous forest.

"Okay…" said Nozomi, gawking. "Somebody want to tell me what just happened?"

"It was—" I looked to Misato and Ayanami, but already, the ghost of that girl was gone, leaving only the general to stand there with the light of the projector reflecting off her hair. "It was…something," was all I could muster.

"Yes, yes it was," said Misato, hearing me.

She craned her neck to look at the leftmost projector screen—the view of the battlefield Nozomi had left. The unnatural light faded away, and all was quiet. Neither the enemy, nor humankind, walked the streets of the city. The artillery cannons were silent, and not even a bird flew over the scene.

Only the Fractal angel floated slowly over the wasteland, as though nothing were wrong at all.

"This is what we're up against, people," said Misato, "and if you weren't sure what the enemy would bring against us, now you know. And you know we weren't ready."

She turned a hard eye to the control room, and she said,

"We got our asses kicked."

#

With our failure, Ho Chi Minh City fell.

A few hours after the battle, Misato assembled the control room personnel in the briefing hall—a room with stadium seating, a projector, and whiteboards. The mood in the briefing hall wasn't great. Our early morning wakeup call was starting to take its toll, and rumors were going around about the overall situation elsewhere. The Americans were on the ropes. South America had been cut in half already, with no possibility of relief from their northern neighbors. The Germans were concentrating on mostly on the Mid-East, much to the consternation of the Russians and a coalition of African and Western European states, but they had managed to kill an Angel outside Istanbul. That was a start.

Still, our defenses were being tested all over the world. This was, our people believed, a deliberate strategy on the part of the enemy. We learned this from none other than Keel Lorenz himself. Resting comfortably in his cell, Lorenz had been given various sets of real and fabricated intelligence. Asked to assess each one individually, he gave insights into what he thought the enemy was trying to do. For our situation, he said,

"In this scenario, she's patient," he said. "You see what she's doing, don't you? She's taken her Angels away from your seats of power—away from Germany, Japan, and America. She knows that civilization will collapse if enough of mankind is neutralized." He tapped excitedly on a map. "This is not like before Third Impact, you see? There is no fortress city guarding the Angels' goal. You can't make them come to you. She will stave you and suffocate you, even if it takes years to see it through."

As much as I hated to admit it, Lorenz was useful to us. If the price of his analysis was a few dozen copies of Arthur C. Clarke books, it was well worth it.

Still, Lorenz may have given us an idea of the enemy's strategy, but we were still no closer to defeating it. The Americans and Germans had different ideas on that matter. The Americans were looking to expand Project Noah, hoping to rain justice from above, but it remained to be seen how effective the tungsten rods would be against each Angel, and their planes and spaceships weren't guaranteed to be safe from the flying, spinning creatures that had come as well. The Germans, on the other hand, wanted to ramp up the use of N2 weapons against the Angels. That was fine as long as the Angels were caught outside of major population centers, but dissolving whole cities was part of their strategy. Once they were in position, bombarding them with an entire N2 stockpile would've been like burning down your own house to keep criminals out.

At that point, the discussion in the briefing turned to our efforts. "What do we have, to turn the tide of this war?" asked Hyuga. "To that, I turn the floor over to research and development. Captain Ibuki?"

Maya came up from the second row and limped to the podium—a reminder of the injury she'd sustained body-doubling for me. She plopped a folder full of papers and notes on the podium.

"Sorry," she said, flipping through the stack of documents. "Let's see—ah, here we are."

She pressed on a remote, and the slide turned to a list of projects.

"We have a few ideas we've been working on," she said. "The Cyclops Maneuver was the most mature, but that's already been used in combat, so I won't discuss that for now.

"Multiple Soul Confinement might allow us to share the burden of piloting between several simultaneous pilots, improving mental stability but requiring increased coordination. Still, if it allows us to run the Eva at increased plug depth or synch ratio, we could see tangible increases in combat effectiveness. There would, however, be a significant risk of mental cross-contamination between the pilots.

"But the most battle-ready technology we've yet to implement is the puncture engine. Asuka?"

Asuka, sitting beside me, was hunched over a laptop. She pounded at her keyboard for a few climactic keystrokes, grinning when she was done. "You should have it now, Maya!" she said, beaming.

Maya pored over the computer at the podium for a few seconds, peering at the screen. She dragged a few charts and plots onto the projector image, brushed some hair out of her eyes, and went on.

"Asuka's just given me some estimates of effectiveness of the puncture engine, based on our latest models. The puncture engine neutralizes an Angel's AT field. These plots show how much power must be diverted from the Eva's S2 engine to neutralize an AT field of the given strength to less than 1% effectiveness. Even for the Angels we encountered today, the required power output is well within the Eva's operating budget, which is…" She highlighted a red line at the far right of the plot. "Right here."

Misato cleared her throat. "Models are all well and good, Ibuki, but what do you need to make this model reality?"

Maya opened her mouth to answer, but Asuka cut her off.

"Test pilots," said Asuka. "Take a few hours from the backups' schedules—or even Nozomi's—and give us the data we need to make the prototype into a production weapon."

Misato looked to Maya, who nodded in agreement. "There's no substitute for real human beings working with these things," said Maya.

At that, Misato and Hyuga exchanged a glance, with Hyuga shrugging. Misato flipped through some papers before saying,

"All right, make it happen. Hyuga will make the pilots' schedule work for it."

Asuka clapped her hands together, grinning. "You're making a good choice, Misato. You're right to put your faith in me to save the world."

At that, Misato raised both eyebrows. "I thought you said you don't like to gloat until after you win."

"This is a win," said Asuka. "The victory over the Angels is just a formality at this point."

Shaking her head knowingly, Misato turned her attention to the rest of the presentation. "Make that happen," she said, "and I'll buy you _two_ steak dinners."

The briefing went on, of course, with other base officers presenting ideas for improvements. Aoba went into detail about modifications to the Eva launch system, as well as plans for bases in other countries to more effectively deter the enemy away from Japan.

But Asuka didn't listen to a word of that, I think. She just went back to typing furiously on her laptop, generating plots and putting them aside like a manic artist in an opium den.

#

The best pilot to test any kind of Eva technology was Nozomi, of course.

Ayanami had transported Unit-14 back to Japan—back to the top of the cage elevator, actually—in the blink of an eye, so by the time we were done with the briefing, Nozomi was safe and sound, no doubt.

Asuka meant to go fetch Nozomi after the meeting, but I told her not to. "You have work to do," I said. "There's a test to prepare, isn't there?"

"You'll bring her over if she's up to it?" asked Asuka.

"Yeah, I, uh—" I looked aside. "I want to see how she's doing."

Asuka raised an eyebrow, but she didn't comment on it. "All right, see you soon." She gave me a peck on the cheek and ran. "Maya, wait up!" She chased down Maya, and the two engaged in a walking conversation about test parameters, leaving me to fetch our pilot.

I went alone to do this, putting the scientists and soldiers behind me. They all had business to attend to. It was only natural I do this small job. I only had a few reports and papers to review in my office.

No, you see, most people on the base had to be there and had to keep working on their responsibilities. Construction staff checked the buildings' interiors and the rock faces outside every hour of every day. If the mountain on top of us weakened, they'd be the first to let us know. Communications staff maintained the connections to the city and SDF networks. Without them, we would've been blind and deaf.

So you see, most people on the base were essential. The base—and its mission—couldn't function without them.

As I made my way to on-base housing, I was certainly aware of that: a maintenance worker was visible through one of the hallway windows. He seemed to be inspecting the springs at the foot of one of the other buildings. These were no cheap springs either, mind you: if they could support a four-story building, they were nothing you'd want breaking in your face.

Yet there the man was, with only a hard hat and goggles for protection, as he shined a blacklight on the spring to look for metal fatigue.

And I stood there, for a while, watching him through a distant window. I looked up at the dull, inert light of the fluorescent tubes overhead. I put my hands in front of them, seeing how the pale white light reflected off equally pale skin.

And I went on.

Nozomi's quarters were in the same building of base housing as mine, but it was a few floors down. All the pilot candidates had quarters there, but all except for Nozomi's were shared, and she only got her private room just a few days before the Black Moon's arrival.

Let's just say you don't want your main pilot up for sixteen hours at a time just to have to share a room with someone else when they're off the clock.

But in the end, Nozomi's door was just another dark-blue door along a row of two dozen others, standing out only for the contrast against the cream-colored pipes and walls. If you thought it'd be dark inside a mountain, you'd be wrong. SDF kept things too bright, too inert, too white. That was the sickly existence we coped with day after day—Nozomi and I both.

I knocked on her door, and a voice came through faintly to me.

"Hey, look, somebody's here," she said.

A pause.

"Okay, whatever."

The door opened, and Nozomi gave me a short smile and a nod. She jerked her head inside, all the while holding a phone handset to her ear and carrying the base—cords and all—back to her nightstand. She plopped back down on her bed, tethered to the phone, while I took a seat at desk.

"Yeah, it's Ikari," she said. "You wanna say hi?" She pressed the earpiece to her shoulder and looked at me. "Hikari says hi. Actually she says a lot of things, but most of them are for me, whether I want them or not, you know?"

I laughed. "Say hello for me—and for Asuka, too."

Nozomi put the phone back to her ear. "Ikari says hi back, and for Soryu, too." A pause. "No, I don't know what it's about. Maybe he's come to make a woman out of me."

I snorted. I shook my head and mouthed _no_. No, no, no!

But Nozomi was having none of it. She grinned wickedly and played with a pencil in her free hand as she spoke.

"I mean, he knocked on the door, I invited him into my room, and he accepted. What do you think is going on, Hikari?"

Horaki's voice was sharp enough I could hear it through the earpiece. "Are you trying to get me off the phone, Nozomi?"

Nozomi thought for a second, still twirling her pencil in her hand.

"Nope," she deadpanned.

"Honestly…" The rest of Hoarki's half of the conversation was too muffled for me to hear, but her tone was by no means uncertain. I could easily imagine her lecturing Nozomi with that voice, saying that Nozomi should bathe with ice to relieve soreness, take two pills at night to help sleep, and the like.

And Nozomi, for her part, nodded and looked aside while she listened.

I gave the two some privacy, or at least as much as I could by not paying attention—effective privacy, even if I didn't want to leave the room. My eyes wandered the room for a bit, and I took in the scene. Nozomi had left her sketchpad on the desk, where I sat. I glanced over the latest sketch—a cityscape of Ho Chi Minh City, the capital on a forested river delta—but I didn't touch any of the pages.

The rest of the room was spartan, like Asuka's and mine, with a wardrobe of cheap plastic drawers, gray and white in color. One drawer had been left a couple centimeters open, and I caught sight of a blue top that had been folded not-so-neatly inside, along with other clothes. The drawer was full, as were the others. Two suitcases lay beyond the bed, at the base of the closet. They were open but empty. Bathroom amenities, too, were all in position and used: a toothbrush, a handful of hair bands, a box of tampons. At that, I only hoped we would not be there long enough to go through that whole box.

But it was possible.

It was possible we'd be there for months, if not longer, and Nozomi?

She was every bit prepared for that.

"Yeah, it's gonna be fine, okay?" Nozomi told her sister on the phone. "It's gonna be fine, so I'll talk to you later, Hikari, okay? Okay, bye."

She put the phone on its base and sighed. She sat up on the bed, put her face in her hands, and shook her head for a few moments. Her hair was a little less than perfect: her scrunchie was loose and lopsided, leaving her ponytail out of shape, but she didn't bother to adjust it. She just sat there with her face in her hands, and she asked, with a muffled voice,

"I'm not needed, am I?"

"To pilot?" I said. "No."

"Good." She stretched her arms out, wincing. "Feels like I got run over by a steamroller. Is it always this bad?"

"It can be."

"That's not encouraging."

"You'd hate it more if I lied."

She huffed at that, smiling weakly. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I would." She fell back in bed and bounced a little off the mattress. She stared at the ceiling. "As long as it's not today, I'll be good. I think." She cast an eye to me. "Can you get my pad?"

I laughed at that, and I handed over the drawings. "Some things you don't take a break from, do you?"

"What else am I gonna do?" She propped a pillow up against the headboard and sat with the sketchpad on her legs. "Sit around and stare at the ceiling all day?"

I shrugged. "It worked for me, once upon a time."

"Hm, I dunno if I want to end up in your position, Ikari," she said, twirling her pencil in her fingers as she eyed her pad.

"Why's that?"

"If I end up having to mentor another kid to pilot one of these things, I think the world will have had its fill of Eva and Angels."

"I already have," I said, looking aside. "What are we supposed to do with one Eva against two Angel?"

"Get our asses handed to us, I think," she said with a sigh. "But after that—I dunno, I should've broken out of that wormy Angel's grasp without needing to go full-on berserk. That does a wonder on a girl's head; don't wanna be doing that lightly." She glanced up from her pad, even as she put down a few strokes in charcoal pencil. "Maybe you wanna look at the video later and see if you think so, too?"

"Yeah, I think I will," I said, but to tell the truth, my mind was far from film review sessions of combat footage. No, I watched Nozomi draw, and I'll tell you this: her movements didn't betray the soreness in her muscles and joints. There wasn't just a girl in front of me: there was an artist. Her spirit and will to capture the world in her sketchpad was still there. Piloting Eva hadn't taken a gram of that spirit out of her. Her scrutinizing eye was as keen as ever, and her pencil strokes were meticulous.

"What?" she said, the corners of her lips curling up. "Something funny?"

"Not funny," I said, chuckling to myself. "Not funny so much as—" I cast my eyes to the ceiling for a moment. "You're doing okay, aren't you, Nozomi?"

"Hah, I'm glad somebody thinks so," she said, glancing at the phone. "You wanna tell Hikari that?"

"She's looking out for you."

"Trust me: I know it. But no amount of me telling her I'm safe and gonna be fine is gonna help it."

"Do you need me to chat with her? Seriously—about this?"

Nozomi lowered her sketchpad for a moment. She pursed her lips and tapped her pencil on the sketchpad's binding.

"No," she said after a moment's contemplation. "It's not gonna do any good, you know?" She went back to sketching. "So don't worry about it. It's not Hikari's fault, after all."

"Things are what they are," I said, nodding.

Nozomi's eyes flickered to me and then away, but she said nothing more on the matter. "So, Ikari."

"Hm?"

"Isn't this a bit of a long break for you?"

I flinched, and I shifted my weight in the flimsy plastic chair. "What do you mean?"

"Is this a social call, or is something up?"

"Oh, it's—it's uh—"

At that, she put the pad down altogether and raised both eyebrows. "Ikari."

I winced, looking aside. "I guess—I guess you could say it's just an old pilot being a worrywart in his own way, hm? I, uh—I just wanted to see if you were doing all right, but here you are, handling things—" I scratched the back of my head and shrugged. "Doesn't leave much for me to do, really, does it?"

Nozomi rolled her eyes. "Really? You're embarrassed about that?"

"Well, I—"

Shaking her head, Nozomi picked up her sketchpad again. "You've gotta stop worrying about this stuff, Ikari. If not for you, I'd still be on the phone with Hikari right now. So just in that, you're helping me out. Never mind that when I trained with the major, it was all just—it wasn't fun, you know? I mean—I'm not saying piloting Eva is fun. It's just that guy's a little too clinical. You and me—we're actually a team."

I bowed my head. "I'm glad you think so."

"Why? I'm not letting you down, am I?"

"What?" I waved my hands frantically. "No—I—what did I say—?"

She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows. "Am I, Ikari?"

"No," I said, smiling to myself.

"Good. That matters to me, too, you know. I just try not to freak out about it, right?"

"Right," I said. "Thanks, Nozomi."

"Of course." She turned her sketchpad around and showed me a new sketch—one with a boy sitting at a cheap plastic desk, and if I must say, he looked like a nervous wreck and a fool. Thankfully, the artist didn't seem to hold this against him. "Ikari," she said, "even if we lose our next battle, I wanna see you looking like you just hit a home run in the Japan Series."

"You're into sports, too?"

"Nope!" she said with a shrug, and she went back to sketching. "So, if home runs are bad, then let's just come up with something else, okay?"

I laughed at that. "We'd be lost without you, Nozomi."

"You think so? That's…kinda worrying."

"Well, maybe I would be then, just a little." I rose from the uncomfortable seat. "I'm glad you're hanging in there."

She smiled briefly. "Finally gotta get back to work, huh?"

"Ye—yeah," I said. "Misato just held a briefing. Asuka has an idea, an experiment. I dunno how it's going to pan out."

"If it helps us win, I'm all for it. Anything I can help with?"

I froze in the doorway. I looked back at her, but she wasn't watching me. She closed her eyes and stretched her arms again, wincing with pain and soreness. Then, she did the same for her legs: she leaned all the way forward, straining herself to touch the tips of her toes.

She let out an exhausted breath after that, and only then did our eyes meet again. "Ikari?" she said.

"Oh, sorry," I said, bowing my head. "No, nothing you're needed for. I think we've got a handle on it, but I'll let you know." I paused. "Are you going to sleep—eventually?"

"Maybe," she said, shrugging again, albeit with a more pained expression. "See ya, Ikari."

"Take care, Nozomi," I said with a nod.

And I left her at that.

I turned a corner and went up a floor, and I picked up one of the wall-mounted phones.

"Hi, Asuka?" I said. "It's me. Nozomi isn't feeling too well. I think we should get a substitute—or actually…"

"Actually _what_ now?" she asked.

"Instead of bothering another backup, is there something an old, washed-up pilot can do?"

#

There are a lot of things I should've considered before asking to step into an Eva again. Never mind that it was only a partial, malformed Eva with half a head at best. I should never have asked to pilot such a thing again without thinking about the stress it would exert on my mind; the pain I would suffer if it should be injured, even in a test; the nightmares I might endure from connecting with something that had only a fragment of humanity within…

Or the discomfort of a plugsuit squeezing my crotch.

First, before anyone gets the wrong idea, not all the plugsuits for Unit-14 were made for Nozomi. I was spared that repeat embarrassment, at least. No, there were plugsuits in several shapes, but not all sizes. Few of them had been made tall enough for me—and I was getting taller, honest!—so fitting in one was like having rubber bands pulling on my shoulders to fold me in half.

And that was a shame, really: the suit was fairly nice, I think. It was even _elegant_ , you might say, with a sleek combination of white, black, and forest green. It suited Nozomi well with her cool personality, and I must admit that, despite the discomfort, I stood in the pilots' locker room for a bit and studied myself in a mirror, to see how the outfit suited me.

The tight-fitting suit left, well, very little to the imagination, and I wondered, did ancient warriors of the past run around more or less naked, and if they did, did that help show off their muscles? Did that help intimidate their foes?

While I was considering this, someone else in the locker room thought I was a madman. That person was Sasaki, one of the backup pilots. He was a shorter boy with an even shorter bowl cut, and he eyed me from the side with his mouth slightly open.

"Ikari, what are you doing?" He frowned. "Are you…having trouble with your suit?"

I bowed my head, not even facing him. "Sort of."

The locker room door banged on its hinges. "Oh boys!" Asuka's voice rang out, and she strode in without a hesitation in her step. She peered around a bank of lockers, tracking us down. "Come on, both of you—we've got a test to run!"

"Aren't you supposed to wait for people to come out first?" I asked.

She sized me up from head to toe. "Nothing I haven't seen before."

Sasaki looked aside, stifling a chuckle, and I said,

"But what about Sasaki? He could've still been getting dressed!"

"Please," said Asuka, rolling her eyes. "Does an adult need permission to lay eyes on a babe?"

Sasaki gaped at that, but said nothing.

"Asuka, please," I said, wincing.

"It's true, isn't it?" she said, leading the three of us to the hallway. "Come on."

Still, I took Sasaki aside on our way to the stairs. "Sorry about that."

He just shrugged. "It's okay. It doesn't bother me. I'm not into older women."

Asuka looked over her shoulder and glared. "What was that?"

Sasaki looked aside, albeit with a slight smile on his face, and this time it was my turn to stifle a laugh.

#

The simulation body pool was a wide, cavernous space. Dark red fluid flowed around the simulation bodies themselves—two malformed, half-human shapes that rested peacefully in the goo. Captain Aoba oversaw the entry plug operations: his team loaded Sasaki and me into our respective plugs. "You might need to adjust the seat," he told me as I climbed inside.

It took me a minute or two of searching the controls to realize it: there was no way to adjust the seat.

"You're not going into combat, Shinji." That was Asuka over the intercom. She, Maya, and other members of their research team observed the procedure from behind a wide, rectangular chamber beneath the water line. "Relax," said Asuka. "This should be quick."

What was _not_ quick was the filling of the entry plug with LCL. I put my head underwater and forced my airway open as best as I could remember, but I gagged a couple times before old habits took hold. Even so, it's an unnatural feeling: you have to work harder to breathe. Even with practice, it doesn't come naturally.

Once Sasaki and I were immersed, the technicians loaded our entry plugs into the simulation bodies. The first connection was merely mechanical—the sliding of the plug into the partial Eva's neck. The second connection was not.

"Okay, Shinji," said Maya from the control room, "we're going to ease you into synchronization. It's going to be pretty low-level, so you shouldn't feel too many ill effects, but with the development of your nervous system, you may feel it a little more than you remember. All right?"

I nodded and gulped—and instantly regretted it for the taste of bloody fluid going down my throat. "Let's, uh, go for it then," I said.

"All right. We're going to initiate the secondary contacts…now."

A jolt went through my body. My right arm tingled. I looked out, and I saw goo—not the outline of the simulation body's frame on the holographic display. I saw outside myself. I saw an arm react as my thoughts moved it. I saw—

"Shinji!" Asuka snatched up the microphone. "Stay with us, Shinji. You're a human. You're not one of those things. Right?"

I blinked, and I was back in the entry plug, but the tingling sensation remained—like a huge weight behind my eyes. I tightened my grip on the controls and forced my eyelids wide. If I backed off for even an instant…

"It's okay!" I called out, breathing deliberately. "I'm here."

"Good, keep it that way. You're the one with the engine equipped, so if you screw this up, we'll have to get someone else."

At that, Maya covered the microphone and asked Asuka something. Asuka made her response, and Maya reluctantly took her hand off the mic. Asuka went on.

"Like I said, you're the one with the engine equipped, so if even you can make it work with the synch rate you have now, anyone can use it." She winked. "So don't be shy trying to impress us, Shinji."

I took another deep, steady breath, keeping my eyes fixed on her. "I understand."

"Good."

Asuka, Maya, and the rest of their team continued with the process of getting Sasaki up to speed. I have to admit I tuned out most of what they were saying. The pressure behind my eyes demanded almost all my attention to quash. It was like having a nest of spiders just behind your eyeball. You can feel it's there, and you know when those spiders hatch and start rummaging around your brain, but you can't do anything except to ignore them. You have to ignore them with a purpose.

So I watched Asuka. She spoke with technicians and pointed out to them important readouts on the monitors. She got on the intercom with Sasaki and had him position just so—not too far away from me, not too close. She was the conductor of this whole affair. Even though Maya was technically her superior, Asuka would let no one interfere with the harmony of her magnum opus. She was the conductor, and even there, I was more like a pair of drums than any of the players in this piece.

"Okay, Shinji—Shinji, are you with me?"

I blinked. Asuka was looking right at me.

"Ye—yes," I stammered, shaking myself to attention. "Sorry about that."

"Your heart rate's a little high," she said. "If you're thinking about me, that needs to wait, understand?"

"I understand."

"Do you? No problems? Nothing to be concerned about?"

"No, not—" I grimaced. The ball of spiders in my head was moving. "Well, it's a little uncomfortable, but I can manage!"

Asuka covered the microphone and talked with one of the technicians. She cast a furtive look toward me for a minute before continuing on.

"We're going to do an AT field test first, to establish a baseline. Shinji, Sasaki, bring your arms forward, like you're going to try to push each other."

Our pair of one-armed giants raised their arms, but just as we were going to press our palms against each other, a flickering barrier appeared between us, with energy rippling outward from the closest point of contact.

Asuka left the microphone to check some readouts, and Maya took over. "Good, not too much, just hold it right there," she said. "It'd be bad if you two went full power and shredded the whole building with that. Just stay put."

That was all well and good for them to ask, but just holding in that position, with Sasaki's simulation body pressuring mine was like having that ball of spiders turn into a ball of scorpions instead, stinging and crawling and grasping at my optic nerves.

"How—how long do we need to hold this?" I asked, shuddering.

Asuka raised an eyebrow. "That should be good. Shinji, you can lower your arm now. Sasaki, leave yours the way it is. Now we're going to open the interlocks for the puncture engine. Shinji, the engine activation toggle is mapped to Button 4 on your right induction lever. Don't activate it until I give the word. Got it?"

I fingered the button on the underside of the controls. "Got it. Ready when you are."

"Okay, you can activate the puncture engine with one press of Button R4 and try to grab the other simulation body's arm."

I pressed the button on the underside of the controls. Some kind of whirring or vibration went through the simulation body, and those scorpions in my head turned into a colony of soldier ants. I bit my lip and thrust the induction lever forward—too roughly for the simulation body's arm punched at the AT field. The barrier held but bent visibly under the punch's force.

Then it shattered! It shattered in a flash of light, and I saw—

I saw a woman?

Yes, a woman—unmistakably so. With a smile, she screwed a pair of eyeglasses back to one of their temples. She cleaned the lenses with lens cloth and handed them back to…someone, someone with slender, precise fingers—pianist's fingers. "Try to be more careful, hm?" she said with an affectionate lilt in her voice.

"Nice job, Shinji, that's great!" Asuka was practically clapping for the microphone. "Test number one is a resounding success, I think."

My vision cleared. The image of the woman left me. My sight was awash with orange and red hues once more.

"Resounding success subject to full analysis of experiment data," said Maya, her voice quiet—she was some distance from the microphone.

"Yes, yes, subject to analysis and all that." Still, Asuka was beaming. "Shinji, you ready to get out of that thing now?"

"Yes, please!" I cried out.

Thankfully, they didn't wait too long. They cut us out of synchronization quickly, and I was more than happy to cough up the LCL in my lungs. In fact, I was still coughing up some stuff when Sasaki was let out of his entry plug and back onto the catwalk.

"Are you all right, Ikari?" the boy asked.

"I'm not used to it, that's all," I said, putting on a weak smile.

Sasaki wiped at his eye, flicking some LCL off his skin. "I don't think anyone really _gets_ used to it," he said.

I nodded at that, but something caught my attention—something about the boy's hand. His fingers, though still cloaked in the plugsuit's gloves, were long and slender.

There was something else about him, too: a faint discoloration around his irises, a hint of blue.

I glanced between him and the simulation body he'd just finished piloting, and I said,

"Sasaki, you need contacts to pilot, don't you?"

He nodded. "I tried my glasses, but the stuff in the plug sticks to them, and the vision isn't very good, either. The doctor said it had to do with refraction?"

"Right, I understand. Did you—did you, uh, have a problem with your glasses recently?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Yes, a screw came loose—the one that connects the lens part to the part that goes over my ear."

"Did someone fix that for you?"

"My mother did, yes. She has good hands for small things like that. Why do you ask?"

I glanced back at the observation room, where Asuka and Maya were going over the results.

"Just curious," I said.

#

I kept the vision I'd had to myself for a while—until dinner, anyway. Maya and Asuka were not surprised.

"Mental contamination was always a risk," said Asuka, helping herself to a serving of rice. "But you can't be violated by a dead Angel."

"That is," said Maya, who poured herself some soup, "if the engine lets us kill the Angel fast enough."

The two scientists mulled over the matter as they ate, and the rest of the table didn't have much to add.

You see, it was dinnertime on the base, and the mess staff had prepared a great meal—a meal in preparation for victory, I think. Grilled catfish, pickled radish, soup, and rice adorned the table in huge bowls and heaping plates, but despite the feast in front of us, the mood was quiet in the officers' mess. The two tables ate in an orderly, almost mechanical fashion. When one person was done with adding to their bowl, they passed the dish to the next in line, like clockwork.

For my part, I took a look at the pot of miso soup in front of us, and I thought back to my time in the soup kitchen. They didn't have pots that big in the soup kitchen, nor did the soup smell so nice. And yet in Manoah Base, all this soup was merely a means to satiate hunger. There was no time to enjoy it, no time to savor it. Indeed, some of the officers stopped by, had their fill, and left to return to duties.

Duty was never far from anyone's mind. Even while Asuka and Maya thought over the implications of mental contamination, Captain Aoba—sitting across from me and beside Maya—had a thought as well:

"Just getting close enough to use the engine is a risk, isn't it?" he remarked, putting down his chopsticks for a moment. "It's a two-way gap, isn't it, Ibuki?"

Maya looked aside and nodded grimly. "The disruption comes from within the Eva. There's no way to propagate that without some kind of gap in the Eva's own AT field."

"So you'll want to be close," Aoba concluded. "Close enough that the Angels can't find the gap and exploit it. Turn on the engine, attack, and then shut it off again—is that right?"

Nozomi scooped some catfish and rice into her personal bowl. "Sounds like it's gonna be hell," she said.

"Look, let's not overreact here," said Asuka, pointing her chopsticks at Aoba. "You—just keep the Eva together. This gap in the AT field is momentary. That's all it is. We use it to break through the enemy's AT field layers one at a time if we must."

But Aoba put down his chopsticks and folded his hands in his lap, meeting Asuka's gaze. "If the Eva's going to expose gaps in its AT field, however breifly, I'll make recommendations to the general to augment the Eva's armor."

Asuka scoffed. "Like that's going to do anything. Armor doesn't mean much against some exotic Angel attack like a quantum hole or a domain wall."

"We'll get you some data on the AT field reconnection timescale," Maya assured Aoba, and when he nodded in acceptance, Maya turned her gaze to Asuka with a resigned shrug. "If the general wants to take action based on that, that's her decision. We'll try to inform her as best we can."

Asuka frowned. With her arms folded and her legs crossed, she tapped her foot on the floor, sizing up Maya.

"Gonna make sure this has no chance of blowing back on you—is that right?" she remarked.

Maya nodded in Nozomi's direction. "That's only the best, for everyone's safety."

"Even if it costs us another city, another country?"

"Rushing to get the engine in service could cost us an Eva, or a pilot," said Maya.

"Yeah, you know, I'm too young to die," said Nozomi, who helped herself to some pickled radish. "I'm supposed to fall in love, marry someone who's got money or connections, settle down, have lots of kids who make a mess and never thank me, get cheated on because the guy's an asshole and I'm better off without him—all that stuff. You can't take my future divorce away from me, Soryu."

"Ooh, very good," said Asuka, who took a sip of tea. "I'll give you 9 out of 10 for that one."

The girls exchanged a glance, and Nozomi bowed her head like a novice taxidermist in front of a teacher. Maya, Aoba, and I looked on sheer terror. It was easy to see what was happening: Asuka and Nozomi were playing off each other—a partnership that could only spell doom for the rest of us. Their wit combined would be as massive as a black hole—and just as inescapable. We could only hope that the two of them would never work together in the future.

Thankfully, Asuka saw fit to show mercy. "Now then," she said, "what I was trying to say before Nozomi's valiant attempt to sidetrack me is this: we can investigate all these issues, sure, but we've been working on this a long time, and I like to think I've anticipated a lot of these problems. Going back to study them in excruciating detail could cost lives, too."

"I'll review your exeriment logs before we perform any costly tests," Maya assured her.

"Good, do that." Asuka leaned forward, into the steam coming off her soup bowl. "But maybe you want to do something else, Maya—like get a second opinion for our own sake?"

"Whose opinion?"

"Professor Nakamura, perhaps? Akagi's advisor?"

At that, Aoba shook his head, and he folded up his napkin to punctuate his disagreement. "He's not cleared, and I doubt anyone would clear him for it."

"He wasn't on Seele's side," Asuka pointed out. "Even Akagi wasn't on Seele's side, technically. We could use someone to vet this stuff—someone with a proper education."

"Education?" said Maya, and she and Aoba shared a nonplussed glance. "I _am_ working on my metaphysical biology degree."

"Yes, I know," said Asuka, who picked up a couple grains of rice with her chopsticks and ate. "How many years until you're through? Three? Four?"

"How many years for you?"

Asuka shrugged. "I admit, I'm a little behind. I had to take a couple years off after my second bachelor's to pilot a super advanced cyborg called an _Evangelion_ , so I'm still catching up, you know?"

I cleared my throat. "Asuka."

"What?"

"I think you have some stray threads on your coat. Maybe we should go outside for a little while?"

She narrowed her eyes at me, but a couple glances at Aoba, Maya, and Nozomi seemed to convince her. "All right." She rose, and she said toward the head of the table, "Major Hyuga, may we be excused briefly?"

"Sounds like that would be for the best," he said with a nod.

Asuka blushed slightly at this, but she said no more, and I followed her out. Once we were in the hallway, I showed her aside—where careful ears within would have a harder time hearing.

"You don't need to pound your chest in front of them," I said, straightening out some wrinkles in her coat.

"You think she's being reasonable?" asked Asuka.

"I think she's can't look at it any other way. She _has_ been the one in charge here now for what—two years?"

"That's because nobody else in the lab has a clue."

I didn't say anything directly to that. Rather, I just brushed away a few strands of hair and loose threads from Asuka's white labcoat—which wasn't even her real labcoat, mind you. You would never wear a real labcoat—one that had been exposed to chemicals and such—outside the lab. No, this one was Asuka's own; it had the coffee stains to prove that.

"Shinji?" she asked.

"Hmm?"

Her eye caught mine as I tended to one last fiber near her waist.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I think even if you're right, Maya and Aoba aren't inclined to agree with you."

"No point in fighting them on this, is there?"

"That's…one way of looking at it."

Asuka thought about that for a while. She balled her hands into fists, and she gave me a peck on the cheek. "Thanks for taking me out here."

I nodded, saying nothing more, and we returned to the table—with Hyuga's blessing, of course. Asuka got right to it:

"Sorry, I was an ass," she said, as matter-of-factly as a weatherman announces an afternoon shower. "And Maya, I know the last thing you must want is for someone with suspicious ties to second-guess your work."

Maya looked aside. "Suspicious or not, Nakamura trained some brilliant students. It's something I'll bring up with the General as well."

"That's all I'm asking for," said Asuka. She put on a grin and set her gaze on Aoba. "Now then, Captain Aoba!"

He looked to Maya, then to me. "What's this about?"

I showed him both my hands. "I'm not a part of this."

"That's true; Shinji's not a part of this," said Asuka, "but I have it on good authority that you've been up to something in your time off-duty."

"Wh—what could you possibly mean?"

Asuka leaned forward, drumming her fingers on the table.

"Maybe…a secret rock band?"

At that, Aoba bowed his head, and he slid two bowls of food aside. He leaned forward, meeting Asuka's gaze in turn.

"Young lady, what do you know about rock and roll?"

"Not enough," said Asuka, "but I hear you're an expert. Maybe you could enlighten me?"

Aoba was more than up to the task. As dinner finished up in the officers' mess, he gave Asuka, Nozomi, Maya, and me a brief history of the genre, from the Boswell Sisters to "Shake, Rattle, and Roll."

And Asuka, for her part, engaged him with poise. She watched his eyes religiously, nodded as he spoke, and smiled. She never gave up that smile, not for the rest of the evening. She wore it as she ate and sipped her tea—and believe me, she wore it well.

Two days later, Sydney fell to the enemy, and Misato and Maya mutually agreed to certify the puncture engine as ready for combat trials.

"Is it actually ready, though?" I asked Asuka.

"Of course it is," she said. "I'd stake my life on it."

She put on that smile again. She did wear it well.

As well as she wore that white coat of hers.

#

Combat test day for Asuka's puncture engine. We would've preferred a test using two Eva—just for the sake of safety—but we didn't have that luxury. Unit-14 was needed in battle, and the American and German Eva were too far away to use for a simple test. There was no other way to go about it. The puncture engine would be first used against an Angel, for better or for worse.

I reported for duty in the control room as though this battle were like any other. I went over the situation briefing one last time, and I went through the checklists with Nozomi. Asuka, however, went about things completely differently. She wasn't going to just sit back and wait for the test to come. She had a suite of last-minute instructions for the other controllers.

"Peripheral, I need you to keep an eye out for impulse transients in the right leg," she told one of the nervous system controllers.

"What kind of transients?" the controller asked Asuka.

"Anything larger than 50% above active baseline, sustained for more than four cycles," Asuka told him. "It might be nothing, but if I know there's been a transient, I can back-check through some data and look for other warning signs."

The peripheral controller sighed, rubbing his temple. "Why wasn't this in the briefing?"

"It's not a reliable failure indicator by itself." Asuka raised an eyebrow. "Is it a problem to look for this?"

"Not for you, maybe," said the controller. "Have you tried to write an alert module and get it cleared in ten minutes?"

"Is this something you can hook me into?"

The controller sat a bit straighter and started typing at his console. "If you want to keep an eye out for it, be my guest."

"Thanks," she said with a slight bow. "I'll have Shinji make you a treat for that."

The peripheral nervous system controller shot me a look. "Did you agree to this?"

"Hey." Asuka snapped her fingers. "Trust me here: you don't want _me_ making you a treat."

The PNS controller looked back to me, and I shrugged and smiled nervously. Satisfied, the controller turned back to his console to continue the pre-launch preparations. Asuka, too, went back to her station, bringing up some of that PNS data forwarded to her. She collected herself with a sip of coffee before bearing down to write an automated alert program. And this she was supposed to do in ten minutes before launch.

I pressed the transmit button for the radio. "Nozomi."

The girl in the entry plug opened one eye, looking directly at the virtual camera. "Yeah?"

"Be careful when you activate this new device," I told her.

"Why's that? You think there's a problem?"

I glanced back across the aisle, to Asuka's station. She was knee-deep in code, splashed across two monitors, and she typed furiously to modify one section in particular.

"I think," I told Nozomi, "that there are still a few things we don't know about this."

Nozomi eyed me at that, but she straightened herself up in her seat, grasped the controls, and looked ahead, saying nothing more. I cast my gaze ahead, to the three projected screens with countdowns and satellite images and telemetry and all that.

And for a moment, just a moment, I felt as though I were sitting inside my own head. My arms moved when I wanted them to move, but they weren't really mine. I saw the bridge of my own nose from the inside and the outlines of my eyebrows and cheeks at the edges of my vision. I heard my own breath as though I were a giant, hulking, fleshy beast.

I shook my head, wiped my eyes, and blinked. The sensation passed, and I took a long gulp of tea for good measure, letting the hot fluid burn a bit on its way down. There was no mistaking that.

I emptied my thermos as the minutes counted down, and like everyone else in that room, I watched and waited.

Once again, the enemy ran rampant over a crucial city, yet I couldn't help but wonder: did it matter which city? Did it matter which country was fighting to keep them at bay?

I say that not to imply they were irrelevant, or that we didn't care about them. No, it was our _duty_ to care about them. It was our duty to go to their aid. Yet at the same time, you can't see people's faces while they drive tanks or fly airplanes. You can't catch their eyes while they march down the streets of town. The soldiers wear green uniforms because most armies do. The airplanes are gray because it's impractical to paint them otherwise except for demonstrations or special events.

Is the city they rush to defend truly different from any other? You might notice the differences in the skyline, or in the terrain in the distance—were there mountains, or flat forests or jungle for as far as the eye could see?

Maybe it was different for others—like Misato, or Hyuga, or the communications controllers. They would talk to the other countries' armed forces. They would hear those people's calls and pleas for help. Me? I was kept at a distance from any foreign military. They never spoke to me, and I never had the chance to speak to them.

So if I tell you now that this city Nozomi had been sent to was Seoul, do you know it? Can you see it in your mind? Do you see the South Korean Taegeuk on the soldiers' uniforms? Can you imagine their tanks painted as such? Do you picture the cityscape with mountains dwarfed by more mountains in the background?

To tell the truth, I don't blame you if the picture you get of that is fairly vague. It seems vague to me. I can't put into words much that would convince me—years later—that it was really Seoul we were defending.

But there is something that stuck with me: the radio tower.

The Angels had converged on Seoul. They laid waste to skyscrapers and two-story buildings alike. The Worm Angel burrowed underneath the city streets and collapsed them from below. The Fractal Angel cut towers down with its invisible edge, leaving office buildings bisected in bizarrely precise fashion—as though a doctor decided to excise a few city blocks with a giant scalpel.

But the Angels left the radio tower untouched. They routed the South Koreans on the mountain where the tower resided, and the Fractal Angel took up a position there, to unleash its miniature Third Impact on the city.

The Angels didn't destroy the radio tower. They had no concept of symbols, monuments, or landmarks.

We did.

We understood what such things meant.

And we went ahead anyway. We bombed the radio tower and the Angel that sat beside it. We pulverized the mountainside with the all the force short of nuclear fission that mankind could muster. We kicked up so much smoke and dirt that a mushroom cloud rose over Seoul.

And that was just the first blast—the first of many. An unholy rain of bombs blasted the two Angels on the mountain. Unwilling to give up their position, the Worm Angel shielded its companion from the attack: it gave up its body to deflect and absorb the blasts. Strike after strike weakened the Worm's AT field, and two of its outermost field layers shattered under the N2 weapons' cleansing fire.

"Ops, bombardment complete," said a controller.

Hyuga nodded. "AT field strength?"

A second controller gave a thumbs-up. "Should pop like a balloon."

Hyuga looked to me and nodded. "We're on."

I switched on the microphone on my headset. "Nozomi, ready?"

Unit-14 powered up. It got to its feet and shed a heap of leaves and brush. The Eva crouched as it looked uphill, where the radio tower had shattered, leaving only a few metal supports sticking out of the ground.

"All set," said Nozomi.

"Go!"

The Eva burst uphill on all fours, putting its knuckles to the ground. It barrelled over the top of the hill and tackled the Worm Angel, pinning the alien beast to the ground.

"Am I covered?" asked Nozomi.

The Fractal Angel made no move to intervene. It glowed and vibrated with energy, floating perfectly still above the burning grass and trees.

"It's staying put," I said.

"So I'm good? Can we get this over with?"

I looked to Hyuga, who nodded again, but despite that, my gaze went past him—to Asuka. She typed at her console in bursts, taking breaks only to flip through notebooks and jot down numbers from her screen.

"Ikari!" Nozomi yelled in my ear. The Worm contorted itself around her, and its rough, gravelly skin ground against the Eva's armor plates. "I'm going to be bean paste here if I don't get an answer!"

"Sorry, you're good!" I cried. "Activate the engine!"

She pressed a toggle switch on the controls, and a faint hum came through the radio.

The Eva's right hand balled into a fist. Its target: the red orb at the center of the Worm's mouthparts.

Nozomi yelled like an Amazon warrior, and—

TCHNK-TCHNK-TCHNK! Three AT field layers snapped and reconnected around the pair, and the Eva's fist tore through the Worm's mouthparts, smashing the core and the sharp, rotating discs around it. The Angel shrieked and shuddered; its grip on the Eva went slack.

But the Eva just stood there, and Nozomi stared dumbly at the screen, like she didn't understand what she was seeing.

"Engine off!" I said. "Get out of there!"

She shook herself and snapped back to action. She switched the engine off, and she leapt clear of the Worm's body, just before the Angel's weight could collapse on top of her.

"Nozomi, are you all right?" I demanded.

She blinked a few times, taking a breath to steady herself. "I'm okay! Next target?"

The Fractal Angel pulsed with energy. Unit-14 stepped toward it, but the Fractal erupted with a burst of light and force. It shoved Unit-14 down the mountain, and the Angel cut across the mountainside forest, felling the burning trees in its wake.

Unit-14 dusted itself off, took two steps back up the mountain, and—

"Don't chase," said Hyuga, watching the feeds with me. "If they want Seoul, they'll have to come back for it."

With the Fractal speeding out of sight, that seemed the best course of action to me, too. "Stay right there, Nozomi. We're going to watch where the Angel goes. That's a good test; you did great."

"All right, but Ikari…"

"Yes?"

"Are these things supposed to mind meld with me every time I kill them?"

Asuka spun in her seat; her eyes snapped to me. And hers weren't the only ones: Hyuga grimaced, and Misato rose from her chair, too. Misato leaned forward, with one hand supporting her weight by the cubicle wall. She studied Nozomi's expression and said,

"Call her back."

I fumbled with the transmit switch. "N—No, Nozomi, they're not. Let's…"

My eyes flickered to Asuka, but by that point, she was staring at her monitors again, with her arms folded. That was probably the first time that morning she had just stopped to do nothing—nothing but think.

"Let's get you back home," I told Nozomi.

#

The Angel made contact with Nozomi's mind.

In some way, that wasn't a surprise. The Angels had often tried to reach us. As a pilot, it's what you should expect. The Angels before, whatever they really sought, they also wanted to get into our heads—to understand us, to make us question ourselves.

These Angels might not have been any different, and the last thing we could afford was to give them a clear channel into Nozomi's head.

It took hours—agonizing, countless hours—to fly Nozomi back to Manoah Base and get her checked out. Captain Aoba's team extracted the entry plug, and medics were on the scene to load Nozomi onto a stretcher. The infirmary doctors wheeled her to an on-site MRI machine. They let a few of us observe the procedure: Maya and Asuka came to interpret the results in context, as they were the experts on the new weapon, and I was allowed to stay for moral support. One of the base therapists conducted an interview while Nozomi was in the machine.

"You say you felt something when you killed the Angel?" asked the therapist over a microphone. "A feeling you don't think was your own?"

"Definitely," said Nozomi, who lay flat on her back within the MRI tube. "It wasn't like a word or a phrase, but an image, I guess, or an idea and a feeling to go along with it."

"Can you describe it?" asked the therapist.

On one of the monitors was a camera feed showing the inside of the MRI tube. Nozomi was there, and she closed her eyes.

"It was like I was looking at it, and it looked back at me," she began. "I felt like it was looking into me, even though it didn't have any eyes."

In the observation room, slices of Nozomi's brain appeared one line at a time on the monitors. The doctors consulted with Maya and Asuka, and they discussed regions of brain activity together with jargon I couldn't follow and combinations of words I didn't understand. After a time, Maya looked to the therapist and nodded. The therapist went on.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"No." Nozomi's brow creased. "After that, I got a flash of something. I saw the Eva dancing like a puppet."

"Not a fucking puppet!" cried Asuka in a low voice.

"The Angel despised me," Nozomi went on. "It saw me and the Eva as a puppet, and Lilith held the strings."

A silence. Regions of the brain lit up in a cascade of patterns.

"Did you get any other feelings or impressions?" asked the therapist.

"Yeah," said Nozomi. "As much as the Angel hated me for that, it hated itself just as much."

There were some puzzled looks in the observation room. The therapist let his finger off the transmit switch. It was Major Hyuga, also in attendance, who responded first.

"Why?" he asked.

When the therapist relayed that to Nozomi, she pressed her lips together for a moment before replying,

"Because the Angel felt it was a puppet, too."

The scans glowed in ways I couldn't even fathom at that.

Yet as much as I'd worried about Nozomi's health in light of this incident, most of the staff on hand seemed guardedly optimistic. On the whole, it could've been worse: aside from this fleeting glimpse of the enemy, Nozomi had emerged from the encounter in possession of her faculties. The experience hadn't shaken her. The inconvenience of having to go through repeated brain scans may have been worse than the actual contamination.

Even so, the mere hint of an Angel intruding on Nozomi's mind was enough to raise serious concerns. She may have survived this incident little worse for wear, but when Angels get a free ride into your head, it's only a matter of time before they hit a nerve.

And Nozomi's family wasn't about to let that go, either. The middle sister, Hikari Horaki, was invited on the base to tend to Nozomi as a precaution. Asuka and I walked the two of them back to Nozomi's quarters, but Nozomi looked steadfastly away while Horaki hounded us for answers.

"You're telling me an Angel invaded her mind, and it's 'not a big deal'?"

Asuka knew she was treading on thin ice there, trying to balance her job against her responsibility as a friend. She tried to calm Horaki down as best she could. "I said it was _minor_ , not that it wasn't a big deal," said Asuka, who kept a hand on the back of Horaki's shoulder for support. "No amount of contamination is acceptable, but it could be worse, you know?" She met Horaki's eyes at that. "Much worse."

Horaki sighed at that. "Yes, I know."

We passed underneath two sets of fluorescent lights before anyone dared speak again.

"So you're working on it?" asked Horaki. "Is that right?"

"Of course I am." Asuka balled her free hand into a fist as she walked—treading forward with force and purpose. "When I'm done with the engine, you'll worry more about Nozomi playing with teddy bears."

The rest of the day was thankfully uneventful. I had a bit of combat footage to review still, but it was late—it'd taken several hours to get Nozomi back from Seoul, of course, and by the time we were done seeing to her health, it was already well past dinnertime, so Asuka and I went to bed.

Or rather, _I_ went to bed. Asuka had her laptop and a scratchpad out, and she muttered to herself about reconnection probabilities or some such things.

"Get some sleep," I told her. "You'll be better at solving this in the morning."

"Maybe," she said, jotting down some more equations, "but the stuff in my head won't last 'til morning. Gotta get it out now."

"Asuka—"

"The thing works." She pointed a pencil eraser at me. "It works, right? It cut through the Angel like butter. I did that."

"Asuka…"

"We are _so_ close now." She flipped to the next page on her notepad. "I'm not letting the answer get away from me. Not now."

I turned over and shut my eyes, even as she left the light on.

#

Sadly, my dreams took me to a darker place: a theater of eternity, in which the past and future of the universe could play before my eyes. The glow of the movie screen was searing. As soon as I could feel the soft fabric of the theater seats, a voice spoke to me.

"She's a maker, isn't she?"

I'd been placed in the front row to watch a black-and-white film. The scent of butter permeated the room like an old man's overused cologne. It was suffocating. Even a shallow breath made me cough and wheeze.

"She's not the kind to sit still while there's something left for her to do."

That was the hooded stranger, sitting on my left. She "watched" the film too—though how she did so I can't say, for the hood should've blocked any eyes the stranger may have had.

Then again, I don't think she needed eyes to see anything.

I didn't answer the stranger. I followed her gaze to the movie and keyed in on some dialogue.

"But Dr. Oppenheimer," asked a suited man, "if the test is successful, what do you think will happen with the bomb going forward?"

World War II. Robert Oppenheimer. The man who made the bomb.

"Asuka's not a world-class physicist," I said. "These are totally different situations."

"Are they?" asked the stranger.

The film sped up. Dialogue went by in a garbled, high-pitched whir. The movie only stopped when we got to the test itself: the first detonation of the atomic bomb.

As a mushroom cloud rose over the black-and-white desert, the characters in the film watched in awe and wonder. A man in a suit and with dark hair took off some goggles and said, "It worked." He smiled, even—a smile of relief and satisfaction.

But those measured reactions gave way to something else. One scene transition later, the man slammed his car door with energy and vigor. He strutted from his parking space and slapped a colleague on the back, laughing and smiling about the whole thing.

"If she managed to fix it, you don't think she'd act the same?" asked the stranger.

I looked to my right. Ayanami was there but nowhere near enough to help me, for she sat all the way at the end of the row. She cast two helpless eyes at me but said nothing.

I shifted in my seat, looking steadfastly at the movie in front of me. "So what if she does?" I asked. "It doesn't hurt anyone. The Americans dropped the bomb on us. They turned out all right. I'm sure Dr. Oppenheimer turned out all right."

"He was banished into obscurity," said the stranger. "He associated with the wrong people and was viewed with suspicion. History is full of examples like these."

The movie speed up, turning to a blur of color. Asuka, Ayanami, Horaki, Kaworu, Nozomi, Toji, and I—seven of us were pictured sitting around a table with copious folders and notes, with drawings of white giants and the like all laid out for everyone to see.

"What do you think of what they made?" asked the stranger.

"They saved their people." I glanced over at Ayanami. "That counts for something, doesn't it?"

"And you agree with that? It was justified?"

"How could it not be?"

The film sped up again, and the shot fixed on just Ayanami—the Ayanami on the screen. She stood on a barren, rocky landscape. The Geofront loomed over her head, floating like an artificial moon over the earth.

And Ayanami—she was bleeding. She bled from her loins, and the fluid seeped down her legs, but she paid it no mind. She climbed over rocks to reach a jagged coastline, and amid the rocks and crashing waves, she lowered herself into the ocean. She submerged her legs and loins into the sea, and her blood mixed with the water.

Yet as the waves washed over her, Ayanami stared out over the water. There were no birds overhead nor guppies to nip at her ankles.

There wouldn't be any birds for a long time.

"They did accomplish something."

The stranger watched me—she watched me with eyes I couldn't see behind the hood, but I was sure. She turned her head toward me and watched my every move.

"They made you," said the stranger, "and it only took billions of years to see that through. You must be glad."

I coughed. The popcorn smell was overwhelming; it was like being buried inside a tub of the stuff while a careless concessions worker dumped gobs of fake buttery fluid into it. I struggled to lean into the row. I looked to the end. "Ayanami?"

She turned away, head bowed.

"And _she_ is the same," said the stranger.

The screen showed Asuka—at work, in her lab, toiling over computer simulations as Evangelion body parts floated in a tank in front of her.

I jumped out of my seat, heart pounding. I towered over the stranger, and I yelled out, "Stop it! I'm tired of having to listen to you! Leave me alone!"

The stranger glanced to her right. "I'm not the one who chose to involve you."

"Then choose to uninvolve me!"

The stranger peered up at me, and with a snap of her fingers, the sound of the projector cut out.

#

And it was dark.

It was dark in my quarters, so I turned the light on.

I turned the light on, and I saw clearly the empty pillow beside me.

My hand curled into a fist. I clenched my teeth, and I pounded the cold pillow once—only once—and let my fist sink into the material.

I got my slippers. I carried my ID card in my hand, for my pajama pants didn't have pockets. It was light in the hallways, for it was always light on the base. There was no escape from that light. The cool, inert whiteness of it pierced through your soul, as though to show that there can be nothing inside you that isn't dedicated to the cause, nothing held back not but for the sake of working—of saving the world.

I knocked on the laboratory door, and sure enough, Asuka was there. In her white labcoat, Asuka rubbed at her eye and twirled a pen in her hand, as though that could help her stay awake.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" she said.

I scoffed. "Shouldn't you?"

She shrugged at that. "I'm working."

"Can't it wait?"

"How's that?" Her gaze hardened. "That Angel could go attack the capital tomorrow."

"There's only so much you can do about that right now. You're a human being. You need sleep." I brushed some lint off her coat collar. "Please, Asuka. I'm worried about you."

She scratched the back her her head, looking aside. "I know. Sorry. I'm just close on this. Gimme some time. Come inside; it'll help."

"I—" I shook my head. "I don't know if I should. This isn't right."

Her eyes narrowed, and she tightened the coat around her shoulders. "Well, if that's how you feel, fine. Do what you think is right, Shinji."

"Asuka, please—you can't expect to make this perfect, not right now!"

Her mouth hung open at that, and she let out a small sound of shock. "I can't?" she said. "Of course I can. Who do you think I am?"

With that, she took a step back, and she tapped a button on the door control panel.

"I'll sleep tomorrow," she said. "We'll be good by then."

"It _is_ tomorrow," I said.

She blinked in surprise, but the door slid closed between us, and that was that.

I shuffled my feet on the way back to my quarters, and I sat down on my side of the bed for a while, in the light of the endtable lamp.

And after I was done staring at the wall, I picked up the phone. I dialed a number and got a fair bit of runaround from the other end of the line. Some places don't like it when you call for their residents in the middle of the night, but when it comes to family, you can needle them into an exception. It also helps to be a regular caller.

So they did let me through, eventually, and a weak voice answered on the other end of the line.

"Hello? Shinji? What's going on at this time of night?"

I smiled apologetically, even knowing she couldn't see. "I need to talk to you about Asuka. Are you free in the morning?"

"Morning? Better make it afternoon, after this."

I bowed my head, laughing to myself. "That's fine. Thank you. I don't want to keep you. I'll see you tomorrow around one?"

"Yes, that's fine. I hope you're doing well, Shinji. You sound tired—more tired than you should be even at this time of night."

"I'm trying to hang in there," I said, sighing a little. "Thanks again. I'll see you tomorrow."

"All right. Good night, Shinji."

"Good night, Aunt Kyoko."


	8. Tether

**Tether**  
 _Chapter Eight_

I used to think the sanest people in the world were the ones in the hospital.

I know that probably wasn't always true, but after Third Impact, we all needed a little help. Some of us found common ground during Instrumentality, but that just helped us understand each other. It didn't help us survive what was to come. The people in the hospital, at least, had someone else looking out for them. The rest of us just had to deal with reality on our own.

That said, I think I preferred being a little insane to living in that place. The place was too white, too clean, and too inert. And like in the mountain base, the lights were always on.

When I came to visit Aunt Kyoko, a nurse led me to a meeting area—a room with blue stools bolted to the floor. Hospital staff manned all the exits in pairs, even though Aunt Kyoko was the only patient there.

Aunt Kyoko didn't even look at me as the door opened or as I sat across from her. She was busy. She played go on an electronic board—no moving pieces, nothing you can swallow, that sort of thing. Tapping on intersections put stones down, and all captures were automatic. She played against herself. I'd asked before, on a prior visit, why she did such a thing. She said she had two different strategies she wanted to try, so she would play black one way and white the other. She let the game decide for her which strategy was best.

Forcing Aunt Kyoko to acknowledge me would've gone poorly, so I let her play out her next move. Her breathing was slow and steady. Her blue eyes went back and forth, scanning the board, and every now and then, she adjusted her square-rimmed glasses, always the same way: first on her right side, then on her left, and only with her right hand.

She looked a lot like Asuka, too. The glasses were unique to her, of course, and her features were sharper and a little worn. And when she would look at me—at anyone, really—her whole body wavered a little bit. Just maintaining steady eye contact was a bit of a strain.

That's why, often enough, when we talked she didn't look at me.

"Would you like to play?" she asked, still watching the board.

"I haven't had the time to practice, I'm afraid."

She clicked her tongue at that. "You won't get better if you don't play."

"You're right; I'm sorry."

She laughed, and I did, too.

"This time you're the one looking a bit worse for wear," she said, sliding the game board aside. She met my gaze—trembling notwithstanding—and went on. "So, should I guess what the trouble is?"

I scratched the back of my head. "Uh…"

"Is she pregnant?"

"What?" My throat half closed up. "No!"

"But not for lack of trying."

"No!" I looked aside. "Well, there's trying, and there's _trying_."

Aunt Kyoko laughed to herself. "I see! Well, perhaps that's for the best. If you're not _trying_ , then that's no good. It's better to have children on your own terms."

"I think so, too."

A silence.

"So," she said, hands folded and putting on a smile. "What's going on with my daughter?"

I sighed, and with some effort, I told her about the puncture engine and how Asuka had worked on it over the previous few weeks and months. In listening to this, Aunt Kyoko closed her eyes and nodded, as though I'd told her the sun comes up in the morning and sets at night.

"Some things never change, do they?" she quipped. "We were all the same way, back in my time."

" 'We'?" I asked.

"Yui, Naoko, and I. The three of us thought we could change the world." She laughed, and she drummed her fingers on the white plastic table. "I guess we all did, in different ways. And everyone who's come after us—Naoko's daughter, as well as mine—has gone about things with that same belief. It's the only way we knew how to work."

"That's what I'm worried about," I said, tapping two fingers on the table. "Asuka's going about this at full tilt, and I don't know if that's good. I don't know if she's doing it right; I don't know what she's going to do when it's done. So what am I supposed to do?"

Aunt Kyoko took off her glasses. She folded them up and placed them on the table, and she rubbed her eyes. "When Asuka told me the Katsuragi girl had made an offer to her, I told her not to take it."

"You did?" My mouth hung open. "She didn't say a word about that."

"That's Asuka," she said with a shrug. "But if it were up to me, I wouldn't see her work on this."

"Even with all this? With the invasion?"

"Does that matter?" She sat back, arms folded, and stared past me. "Yui thought mankind would inevitably fizzle out—and soon, at that. I'm not sure she was wrong. Either way, that's why it was important to her to find a solution soon."

"A solution for what?"

"For entropy—for mortality. She wanted to find a way for us to persist, if not in body and mind then in spirit, in memory. There's nothing more pressing than the destruction of the human race, is there? And yet…" Her eyes came back to me, and she trembled once more. "Whether that fate awaits us tomorrow or a billion years from now, it doesn't change that there's only so much you personally have to give—you and Asuka, both."

I frowned, and I ran my fingers through my hair. "So she should just stop?"

"Look at me," she said with a sad smile. "You want her following in my footsteps?"

"You—you're still here," I said. "And you have people who love you."

"And I'm thankful for that, believe me, but…" She pulled at her resident's gown. "Look at me now."

I bowed my head.

"You don't want to follow in Yui's footsteps, either, I think," said Aunt Kyoko. "When I said I didn't want someone joining this new Eva program or what-have-you, I meant that—and not just for Asuka."

I touched her hand and nodded. "I understand. Thank you."

She smiled at that, and we chatted about other, trivial things for a time—about sailboats and German candy, about small things that could bring us joy even though they didn't matter that much.

When it was time for me to leave, Aunt Kyoko went back to playing go against herself. Two of the nurses came to take her back to her room, leaving the meeting area empty. It was only as she reached the door that Aunt Kyoko stopped in her tracks and called back to me, saying,

"Oh, Shinji?"

"Yes?"

"You and Asuka should come together next time."

I nodded sadly. "I'm sorry I missed your birthday."

"You should be. Asuka's getting better at cooking, but…" She winced.

"I'm working on that."

"Good. I'd like to see her improve next year. Or if not, I'm relying on you to rescue me."

The door to the residents' wing opened, and the sting of rubbing alcohol made me rub my nose.

#

Once I was back on the base, I arranged for an appointment with Misato and Maya. My concerns were simple: Asuka was working too hard on the device and had invested too much of herself in it. I asked them to be cautious about her work. That was easier said than done, however.

"The truth of the matter is," said Maya, "while most of us on the team have more experience with the Eva, Asuka is creative and innovative in her own way. She's innovative to the point that some of us on the team have difficulty following her sometimes."

Misato made a face at that, like she'd just swallowed a cherry pit. "Are you telling me you can't reliably vouch for her work?"

"I'm saying it takes time."

Time was something we were short of. The Fractal Angel was on the move again, this time making for Australia. An improved and tested puncture engine was a high priority, if at all possible to achieve. In the end, they left it to me to monitor Asuka's behavior and wellbeing.

And how was Asuka doing? When I saw her later that afternoon, she was over the moon.

"We've got it!"

She barged into my office, took a seat in my guest chair, and leaned back, beaming.

"It's gonna work," she said. "Count on it."

Asuka had worked all night on modifications to the engine—modifications that Maya scoured and rechecked independently, much to Asuka's annoyance, but ultimately, Maya cleared the changes. The engine had been reinstalled in the Eva, and Nozomi would soon be on the way with Unit-14 to the battle site.

With the bulk of her work done, Asuka was content to kick back and relax. "I've got some simulations running on some alternative tweaks we might make mid-battle," she said, "but those will take as long as they take. In the meantime, I want to get at least a 10-battle winning streak in the Battle Tower. Or, we could go see Hikari. I think that would cheer her up since Nozomi's going out to fight again. What do you think?"

"Have you slept?" I asked her.

She rolled her eyes. "You can sleep when there's nothing else worth doing. Have you been sleeping?"

"What do you mean?"

"Were you sleeping, or did you work through lunch?"

"I was working."

"On what?"

I turned over a sheet of paper and scanned my eyes over it. I have no idea, to this day, what it actually said. "Stuff."

"Uh-huh. How about the backup pilots? Or Nozomi? What's going on with them?"

I shrugged. "The backups don't have the same synch ratios as Nozomi. And she's got enough on her plate."

Asuka scooted her chair up and leaned forward. "So, what have you been doing?"

"I—I review the reports about the upcoming missions so Nozomi can be ready."

Asuka nodded at that, looking aside. "So you can relay orders more clearly."

"Or make suggestions myself."

"Right." Asuka closed her eyes and rubbed her temple, looking tired. "Fine. Well, let me know if there's anything you want to do tonight, all right?"

Not that there was much we could do. As nice as it would've been to see Horaki and Toji, going into town and then up north would've taken time—time we didn't have if the mission began early in the morning. No, we stayed in that night, and Asuka cursed her handheld game out when she could only get a 9-battle winning streak in the Battle Tower.

#

The next day.

The target: Canberra, capital of Australia.

The enemy: the Fractal Angel and its new protector—a spider-like Angel, one with eight needle-thin legs spread radially around a disc-shaped central body.

The Australians fought tooth-and-nail through the streets of the downtown district. Unlike the Vietnamese or Koreans, they weren't content to pull back and bombard the enemy's walkers or keep the "harpies" at bay with flak cannons.

The Aussies made the enemy fight for every meter, and so the Spider came into the city. Its needle-like legs pierced tanks' armor and the steel frames of skyscrapers alike. The Fractal Angel stayed back. It settled down over the Parliament House—the seat of Australian government, appropriately shaped like a pair of boomerangs. The Fractal hovered over the building and the lawn outside it, building up power for its ultimate attack.

"Ops, the Australians are ready," reported the communications controller.

Hyuga nodded. He stood one step below Misato's desk, and with his arms folded across his chest, he scanned the three forward screens of the control room.

"All right," he said. "Let's kill some Angels today. Tell the ADF we're good to go."

The officer relayed his message, and Australians made their move: their tanks and armored vehicles did an about-face, retreating to the north and west. They opened up on the Spider Angel with artillery fire, shelling its central body and the skyscrapers around it with abandon. What had once been a battlefield dominated by twisted and broken metal erupted in pockets of fire.

The Spider Angel gave chase. Its legs pierced the pavement beneath them like picks to a sheet of ice. Its central body bobbed up and down as it pursued a fleet of armored vehicles, and a horde of walkers followed the Angel like footmen behind a knight's charge.

"That's our cue," said Hyuga, making a fist. "Launch Eva!"

Unit-14 dropped from an airborne launch vehicle. Encased in a black aerodynamic sheath, the Eva spiraled down from altitude. The sheath's upper and lower halves separated at skyscraper height, and the Eva tumbled onto the ground before coming up for a ten-point landing:

Right at the feet of the Fractal, with not a blade of grass disturbed on the parliament grounds.

"And people said gym class was a waste of time," said Nozomi. "Hey, Angel! Surprise!"

She flipped a switch on the controls and punched at the Fractal's center. The Angel turned one of its points toward the Eva, and the Angel's AT field layers bent and buckled, forming angled shock waves, like from the wake of a ship.

"Is this right?" asked Nozomi. "This isn't working as well as the first time!"

Maya rose from her station and got on the communications loop. Looking at me, she said, "It's drawing from the energy stores it's been saving for its anti-AT field attack. We'll have to deplete all of that energy first before we can break through. She needs to hold on."

"If you can wait it out, we have a chance," I said. "Do you feel anything? Hear anything unusual?"

"Not too much; it's just pushing back against me a bit."

I peered past Maya to Asuka, who gave me a knowing nod. I smiled, let out a breath, and sat a little further back in my chair.

The first AT field layer snapped and reconnected around the Eva and Angel.

"Ops, pattern yellow has changed trajectory," said the detection controller. "It's on its way back to Unit-14. ETA three minutes."

Hyuga grimaced, and he looked across the aisle. "Maya, what can we do to speed this up?"

"We're working on that," she said, poring over a binder full of material as a few of her colleagues gathered around, "but bear in mind: this engine is still in an experimental stage. There might not be a way to adjust it like this that we can _guarantee_ will work and pose minimal risk to the pilot."

"But if no one else has something, I might have a solution." Asuka rose from her seat, touching two fingers to her breastbone. "I thought something like this might happen. I ran some sims overnight to test different configurations. I have one that works—in theory."

Maya coughed. "Asuka—a simulation is not reality."

"I know that, but just look at the data! Tell me you think this isn't good enough to salvage this operation."

Maya and her colleagues gathered around Asuka's station. A flurry of comments and half-formed thoughts followed.

"No, I can't—how can you even follow this?" said one technician.

"Okay, that's good. We can do that, and it'll probably work, but you can't guess what will happen to the contamination ratio, can you? Or can you?" said another.

"This is so fast," said Maya, shaking her head. "Too fast. How are we supposed to know, inside of two minutes…?"

There was a crackle in my ear. "Shinji," said Misato, "this is on a private loop."

I glanced back reflexively. The general's eyes were on me, but she spoke quietly enough that no one but she, Hyuga, and I could actually hear.

"Regardless of what Captain Ibuki says, what do you think of this?"

I about gagged on the spot. I glanced back at Asuka, who was going over finer points of her data with the rest of the qualified controllers. She gestured loudly with a pen in hand, nearly drawing on the screen to make her points. And as I watched her, my heartbeat settled down. The way her hair moved as she talked, how the fabric of her white labcoat pulled and twisted as she gestured—those details were all unmistakably characteristic of her. Every fiber of her being was laid bare for the controllers on duty to see.

And what did that show me?

I turned back to Misato, and I gestured to Asuka with one hand. "She believes she's right," I said, smiling.

Misato raised an eyebrow. "And?"

I pursed my lips and sighed. "And she _needs_ to believe that."

Misato's eyes flickered to Asuka. The General kept two fingers on her headset, even as she navigated the controls to broadcast to the room.

"All right, listen up everyone."

The room froze. Asuka and the other controllers stopped in their tracks, even midway through a plot of data.

"We're not going to try an experimental set of modifications on this timescale for a decision," said Misato. "Captain Ibuki, you've said that that's exactly what we'd be doing in trying to make a fix so quickly—isn't that right?"

Maya nodded. "It is, General."

"Then we have no choice. The Australians have already evacuated their government. Tell them we're aborting the operation. Start on the abort and extraction plan. Get Nozomi, the Eva, and the puncture engine home. Let's do this right next time."

"But Misato!" Asuka stormed up the center aisle. "I have an idea here; what is the harm in a short, controlled trial?"

Misato left her seat, and she took her headset off, holding the device by the microphone boom. "You can't know that what you have will work, or what dangers it will introduce," she said, standing toe-to-toe with Asuka. "It's not about being right. It's about following a sound process. We shouldn't rush things unless we have nothing to lose. We have a lot to lose right now."

"So do the Australians; they're going to lose a whole city!"

Sighing, Misato took Asuka by the shoulders with a light touch. She lowered her voice, saying, "Please, Asuka. I know this is important to you. Let's talk about this later, all right?"

Frowning, Asuka nudged Misato's hand aside. "What are you saying?"

Misato's eyes went to me, and that look didn't escape Asuka.

"What did you tell her?" she said, shaking. "What have you been telling people about me, Shinji?"

"Control, third pattern detected!" cried a controller.

Misato raced back around her desk, putting her headset back on. "What? Where?"

"Right on top of Unit-14!"

A dark mist formed above Unit-14 and the Fractal Angel. The mist coalesced as ephemeral tendrils, yanking the Eva off the ground.

"What—what—hey!" Nozomi lurched about in the entry plug. "Ikari, what's going on? How did something like this sneak up on you guys?"

"I—" My mouth moved, but hardly a word came out for several seconds as I fumbled and stuttered. Eventually, I sputtered out, "I don't know! We're trying to get you out of there; we're already in abort procedure. Just hold on!"

"Abort procedure? How am I supposed to get out of here when I'm hanging fifty meters in the air?"

A silence. As Nozomi struggled to break the Mist Angel's tendrils, Hyuga took one ear off his headset and stepped up to Misato's station.

"Play dead," he said.

Misato drummed her fingers on the table, looking like she'd had a rotten piece of fish for lunch. "All right," she said. "Do it."

And so we left Nozomi there. We left Nozomi at the epicenter as the N2 weapons dropped on Canberra. The Australians wouldn't let the Angels get away scot-free. They blew up their own city, scorching the earth, rather than let the Angels escape unscathed.

And all Nozomi could do was curl into a ball and ride out the blast. If nothing else, the shockwaves did blast her free of the Mist Angel's grasp, but to see Unit-14 bounce sickeningly through the forest of Eucalyptus outside of town was a hard pill to swallow. The Eva was broken, battered, and burned. Nozomi probably shared at least one or two of those qualities, as well.

But they were alive, and with the Eva powered down to minimal levels, the Angels moved on for their next targets none the wiser.

Rescue crews made their way to the forest to retrieve Unit-14, and when the threat abated, most of the controllers were released to rest and recover.

That included me, in theory, but I knew better than to expect such a thing.

After all, even as we rose to leave, the wounded look in Asuka's eyes was still there.

#

Once the Eva had been retrieved and the controllers released from their stations, Asuka and I headed back to our quarters, but we didn't say anything to each other on the way. We didn't exchange a single word until Asuka tapped her ID card on the reader and allowed me to go in first: there, she closed the door behind me and stood in the doorway, saying,

"What did you tell Misato?"

She leaned back against the closed door, arms folded, with the white labcoat tight around her body.

I gulped, undid a button at my collar, and said, "I told her I've been worried about you. That's all."

"Really?" she said, an eyebrow raised. "That's all?"

"She didn't want to do anything about it, at the time. Nobody's trying to work against you."

"No?" Asuka pointed back toward the control room. "Then what do you call that?"

"Asuka, Asuka, look—Misato—" I had both my hands in front of me, even though I didn't know what to do with them. "Misato made a judgment call; that's all! Honest!"

She narrowed her eyes, studying me like a hawk. "And you agree with her?"

I let out a breath, rubbed my forehead, and said, "I think you've been working hard on this—maybe too hard."

"What do you know about that?"

I flinched. "Asuka—"

"It's not a crime to put in a little goddamn overtime. I'm trying to help save the world here!"

"But that's not all you're trying to do."

Her eyes flashed. "What do you mean by that?"

"You don't remember that dinner with Maya?" I asked, raising both eyebrows. "You don't remember how you all but said that you were a better scientist than her?"

"That's because I am!"

"But this is no time to be trying to prove it! This is dangerous, Asuka!" I stomped my foot. "It's dangerous for Nozomi, and it's dangerous for you!"

Asuka narrowed her eyes. "You _would_ think that."

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"This is exactly how you are, Shinji," she said, stepping closer. "This is exactly how you've always been. Don't stick up. Don't stand out. Just sink into the shadows and never mind what's going on around you."

"I don't know what you—"

"Is that how you want me to be?" she asked, her voice growing louder. "You want me to be just like you? You want me to go do trivial good deeds anonymously, like that's actually supposed to matter? You want me to go feed the homeless, even when I could do so much more? Should I sit at home and stare at letters from angry people, offering empty words about hope and strength?"

I balled both hands into fists, but I kept them at my side. "Asuka!"

"The world doesn't need another useless person, Shinji!" she roared, "And I will not act like that even if you ask me to!"

Trembling, I shouted back, "Then you're going to end up just like your mom!"

Her eyes widened, and she let out a sound between a squeal and a shriek. She took one step toward me, and I backpedaled. I fell backward on the bed.

Asuka collected her breath, and she covered her face with her hand. "Shinji."

Her voice was icy, and she shuddered as she took her next breath. She turned away.

"I'm going home tonight," she said, "maybe for a day or two. That's for the best. Right?"

I tried to speak, but at first, a hoarse, croaking sound came out. I swallowed—painfully—and with my head low, I said, "Right."

She nodded at that—still not facing me. "See you."

And she walked out.

#

At that time, I could have counted on one hand how many nights I'd spent away from Asuka—at least since she came back from the sea.

For all of us who came first, just surviving was hard. I came back near the remains of Tokyo-3 and watched Lilith's head sink into crater bay. I didn't see anyone else at all, actually, until Asuka came back.

I didn't trust her at first. I didn't trust that she was Asuka. I didn't trust that she was real, but Asuka convinced me. She didn't love me unconditionally. She didn't shower me with praise I didn't deserve. No human being can offer such things. That's how I knew she was real: just because I wanted something from her didn't mean she'd put up with it—not without getting her due in return.

It was Asuka who convinced me to go inland—away from the sea and toward salvation. She kept things organized and running smoothly. She managed our camp and scrounged for supplies. She made sure I wasn't useless: I had the hands for cello, so she assumed I could turn that into a talent for trapmaking, tying up tents, and the like. When we came across other bands of survivors, she made sure we had the sticks, crowbars, and matches to defend ourselves.

So you see, I trusted Asuka to take care of a lot of this stuff. She had that certainty. She reduced that life-and-death situation down to something I could deal with and understand: patch up a tent, make some food, and so on.

But Asuka could make mistakes, too. One time, we spotted a group of survivors coming our way. She thought one pointed a rifle into the air, so she threw a Molotov cocktail their direction.

It wasn't a rifle, though: it was a signalling flag.

#

The next morning, after the fall of Canberra, the senior officers and civilian staff gathered in the briefing auditorium to assess the situation. The Spider, Fractal, and Mist Angels were staying together on their way north to the Asian mainland. Misato put our hopes on the puncture engine for a quick and effective solution. "Make it work," she ordered the scientists. "Whatever you need to do—make it work."

"Yes, General," said Maya, speaking on behalf of her people—a group that didn't include Asuka. The scientists left an empty seat for her at the end of the row, but that was all.

After some discussion on the PLA's ability to resist, discussion turned to strategy and tactics. We needed to develop a means to attack these Angels effectively even while outnumbered. Hyuga developed a series of maneuvers for Nozomi and me to practice. That was easier said than done, of course: Nozomi wasn't in the greatest shape. She'd survived the N2 weapon drop, but she'd come away with a broken bone in her hand. The hours of waiting for rescue and safe return to Japan had taken a toll on her mind as well. When she got in the simulator, she was a little cranky.

"So it goes like this, right?" said Nozomi, rubbing her left hand. "Everybody says, 'Hey,' or 'Hi,' or 'Hello,' and before their breath is cold, they have you stripped down, put in another skintight suit, and sent to another chamber with bloody fluid going down your throat." Shaking her head, she sighed. "So, are you holding up, Ikari?"

The control room was only partially staffed that morning, as was typical for simulated exercises. "I've had better days," I told Nozomi, and I took a seat at my station. "If you need some time to recover, I can get the doctors here."

"Is there time?" she asked, casting me a weary eye.

I shook my head.

"Then it is what it is," she said. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"I heard Soryu's taking some time off?'

I rubbed my forehead. "Yeah, she—she needs some time. She's been working pretty hard, too. I'm hoping some time to herself will do her some good."

"You think having her idea shot down in front of the whole control room won't hurt her too much?"

I shook my head. "Nobody really doubts Asuka. We all just think she needs to slow down. Stuff like this has to be done the right way. Your sister wouldn't want it done any other way, would she?"

Nozomi huffed at that. "That's putting it mildly." She licked her lips, opened both eyes forcefully, and gripped the controls. "All right, can we get this over with?"

I smiled slightly, and I dusted off the file of maneuvers and techniques Hyuga wanted us to practice. It was intimidating: fighting one against three isn't something I'd ever had to try. The worst I'd ever faced was two against two, and even then, I'd had Asuka as a partner. If anything, Asuka had more expertise in this sort of asymmetric battle: she was the one who fought the mass-produced Evangelion units.

But Asuka wasn't with us. It was just me and Nozomi.

I guided Nozomi through the practice maneuvers and tried to instruct her as best I could. The list was rigorous and difficult, and Nozomi struggled with it. One maneuver involved Nozomi taking Unit-14 underneath the Spider Angel, in an attempt to shield her from the Mist and the Factal. There, the objective was to attack the Spider from below without letting it impale her on its razor-sharp feet. The goal was to attack quickly before the Spider could reposition and expose her, but Nozomi was cautious, continuing to chase the Spider's body rather than leap in for the kill.

"When you get in that position, you've got to go," I told her. "Go for the kill, or you're dead anyway."

Nozomi shrugged. "I just don't think I can reach all the way up to the body if I'm not directly under it."

"If you can't reach it, then the Spider will just move out of the way, and it moves faster than you do. Even if it doesn't, you have to assume the Mist will wrap itself around you and make sure you can't do anything."

"What if it does?" asked Nozomi. "You don't want to see what would happen if it gets tangled with the Spider's legs?"

"That might be something we can improvise out of," I said, "but Hyuga wants you to go for the kill, and I think he's right."

Nozomi pursed her lips. "All right—you wanna spin it up again?"

I restarted the scenario, and Nozomi went into battle against the three simulated Angels. The Fractal made no move against her. The Mist shot its icy tendrils, but she cut through the air with her prog knife to keep it at bay. Unit-14 somersaulted between the Spider's legs, and the Eva found its feet underneath the Spider—albeit some ways off-center compared to the Spider's main body.

Still, Nozomi leapt for the Spider's core. She grasped and clawed at the main body, holding on with one arm as she thrust the prog knife at the Angel's underbelly, but the Angel brushed her aside with one of its legs, leaving her in the open and vulnerable to a grisly death.

She pounded her right hand on the control levers, and she grunted. "Reset?" she asked.

I clicked a button on the screen, and the simulation Angels vanished.

"So yeah," said Nozomi, letting out a tense breath. "About this decisive attacking thing."

"Maybe a jetpack?" I offered.

"I don't even wanna know what that mist is gonna do to a jetpack," said Nozomi. "It's gonna hurt my maneuverability on the ground, too. You wanna try a grappling hook?"

"Those legs will cut any grappling line we have," I said. "No, no, look—let's try the jetpack. I know it'll be awkward, but I think it's the best chance we have. Trust me on this. There were a lot of times back then I wished I had a jetpack, so let's give it a shot this time."

Nozomi shrugged. "Okay, Soryu."

I flinched. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing."

We went through the test again, this time equipping Unit-14 with a jetpack attachment. Like Nozomi thought, the jetpack did make ground maneuverability difficult: she had a much harder time rolling into position underneath the Spider initially, but once she did manage to get there, the jetpack gave her the thrust and power to pierce the Angel's core without needing to grab it first.

That was all well and good, save for the handful off attempts where Nozomi got splattered by the Spider's legs just for trying to get underneath it. It was a decent method, but it needed some work.

We couldn't spend all afternoon working on that technique, so after a few more looks, we moved on. I flipped to the next page of maneuvers, and I glanced down the row of desks and to the left. Of course, the control room was staffed only as needed for simulations. Maya's people were busy working on the puncture engine. If they weren't asked to attend in advance, they wouldn't be there.

Nozomi and I worked on maneuvers for a few hours before I let her go to rest. There was only so long a pilot could be expected to maintain focus and peak performance anyway, so at that point, we weren't working with much. Better to recharge, regroup, and retry later.

Still, I wanted some more practice with the ideas of the maneuvers, even without Nozomi. I arranged for the first backup pilot, Sasaki, to get some time in the simulator, but just as Sasaki was on his way to the locker room, the door to the control room opened.

"Sorry to interrupt," said Maya, peering inside. "I heard you and Kazuto were getting ready for some simulation runs?"

"That's right," I said.

"Great! Do you mind if I borrow the two of you for another test?"

I shifted in my seat. "Right now?"

"Either now or when you're done with your exercises?"

I sighed, and I closed the maneuver file. "Sasaki," I said on the microphone, "Maya needs us to be guinea pigs again."

#

Maya had another puncture engine test in mind for us. I suited up and manned a simulation body once again, despite the feeling of an anvil pressing on the back of my eyes. The staff were back at their positions, save for Asuka. Maya manned the microphone in the experiment control room all on her own.

"All right, let's reestablish a baseline," said Maya. "Kazuto and Shinji, if you'd extend your hands out to one another and attempt to touch, like before?"

We did so, and as before, our AT fields created a wall of separation between us.

"Good, very good," said Maya, glancing at the readouts in front of her. "All right, Kazuto, leave your hand there. Shinji, do you remember where the puncture engine control is mapped to?"

I wiggled the fingers on my right hand. "Button R4, right?"

"That's right. You can activate it now."

"Maya," I said, "what are we testing here that we couldn't do before?"

"That," she said, "is a secret?"

"Maya…"

"It wouldn't be scientific to tell you," she argued. "This is human subject research as much as it is metaphysical biology. Your belief that the situation is the same or different, that it should or shouldn't be more successful, could affect the results."

"So…?"

"Turn on the engine, Shinji."

I swallowed, and I pressed down on the trigger button. I reached out with the simulation body's arm, grabbing the other body by the wrist. I held that position for a moment; I looked at the other simulation body's head—its grotesque, half-formed head—but despite the parade of soldier ants crawling behind my eyes, I stayed squarely in reality.

"Good," said Maya. "That's great. Thank you both. Let's get you two out of there now, all right?"

A successful test. No discrepancies. No mental contamination.

What more could've gone right?

As soon as I could get out of the ill-fitting plugsuit, I barged out of the pilots' locker room and made for the lab. Maya was still in the experiment control room, sitting with two technicians as they examined the data.

"Maya!" I cried.

She cocked her head, and she held her clipboard a little closer to her chest. "Yes? Is something wrong?"

"I want to know now," I said to her, "what exactly did we just test?"

"The puncture engine, of course. We had to do some additional development—"

"I know that!"

The two technicians at the front of the room looked up from their tablets, and I turned away from them.

"I know that," I said again, more softly this time. "But I want to know what changes you made compared to the first time."

"Shinji," she said, "would you really understand it if I told you everything we've done since the first test?"

"That's not—" I stopped and hissed, shaking my head. "That's not what I'm asking you. Why can't you just tell me?"

Maya pursed her lips, and she offered me a seat in a rolling chair, which I accepted. She flipped through some pages, though I didn't see her reading them very carefully, and she said,

"Shinji, do you think it matters if we tested Asuka's idea just now?"

"Of course it does," I said. "If Asuka had been right, then—" I looked aside, to an empty chair near the control panel. "Then we could've saved Canberra! And Nozomi wouldn't have broken her hand, or—"

"That may be correct," said Maya, smiling, "but that doesn't change for me that we couldn't have known. There wasn't enough time to be sure it was safe, let alone effective. There wasn't enough time to be thorough or to be confident in the process. That's a little of what science is about, isn't it?"

I frowned. "Okay…"

"What I'm saying," Maya went on, "is that right now, it looks like Asuka's idea was safe. You felt that, too, didn't you?"

"I did."

"I'm not sure it would've actually _worked_ the way she thought, though. It might not have helped break through that strong AT field fast enough. We'll look at this data and see. Do you understand?"

I understood.

I understood just fine.

Asuka was right.

#

I went ahead with exercises for the rest of the day, but once it got into the evening, I left the base. I went straight home.

"Asuka!"

The dinner table had a film of dust on it. The kitchen sink was dry. The bed had been made and sat unwrinkled.

"Asuka? Asuka!"

I checked the washroom sink. Her toothbrush was gone. Back in the bedroom, a whole drawer of the dresser sat empty.

I collapsed onto the bed. The air didn't even smell of her. It was just nothing. She might've been gone ever since the night before. She could've gone anywhere.

Could have.

I went to my desk—now empty, save for the landline phone and a light. I dialed a number I knew well.

"Hello, Horaki residence," said the middle sister.

"It's me," I said. "Is she there?"

A pause. "She is. Do you want me to ask if she'll talk?"

I let out a sigh of relief. "Do you think she'll want to?"

"Probably not."

"That is like her, isn't it?"

"It really is."

Another pause. I pulled my collar away from my body, and I said,

"I'm coming up there."

"I know," said Horaki.

"How is she?"

"She's doing what she knows how to do," said Horaki. "She's solving problems, even if they're trivial—even if they're games."

"She hasn't talked about what happened?"

"It's _Asuka_."

I nodded to myself. "Right. See you soon."

Horaki said her goodbyes as well, and I put up the hood of my sweatshirt to go.

#

The trip north to Toyoshina was quite different at night. In the darkness, the fields of farmland were patches of black. Occasionally, a street lamp or house light interrupted the void—a sign of scattered humanity clinging to life despite great separation between each of us.

I took a cab to the Horaki home, and I found the light on when I arrived. Horaki answered the door before I could ring the bell.

"Before I let you in," she said, "I need you to promise me something: don't ask her to come back for her job, or for you."

I scoffed, not sure what to say. "Horaki…"

"I mean, you can ask her, but that shouldn't be the goal, right? Just be there for her." She nodded at me questioningly.

I gulped, and I nodded in turn. "I need to be her friend first."

Horaki smiled. "Yeah. I know you can do that. I just thought it should be said."

"Thank you." I peeked toward the road. "May I come in?"

She winced. "Oh, yes! Yes, of course. Please."

Horaki led me inside, and she motioned for me to follow to a stairwell. We talked quickly about Nozomi—who wasn't exactly answering Horaki's calls. I told her Nozomi was fine, but Horaki didn't seem so sure.

"She's not as unshakable as she makes out to be," said Horaki. "She and Asuka have that in common, I think."

"She's stronger than you might worry she is," I said. "And that also applies to both of them."

"Then maybe I'll just be the one to worry," she said, smiling to herself, "and you tell me when I'm wrong to do so. How does that sound?"

I nodded. "Remind me to tell Toji to treat you to dinner soon. You deserve it."

Horaki beamed at that—brighter than any of the lonely streetlamps in the dark that night—but she didn't let her delight get the better of her. She put on her class rep face as we made the top step, and she led me down the hallway to a guest room. She slid the room divider only partway open, just enough for her to peer inside. "Asuka?"

"Yeah?" The response was lazy, disinterested.

"He's here to see you."

"That right?" There was a faint electronic sound, and then a clattering. "Okay, whatever. Send him in."

Horaki stepped aside, nodding to me, and I went in.

The room was sparsely furnished—a flexible space redecorated based on need, I guessed. Maybe it once belonged to the other family in the house. Whatever the reason, there was only a futon, an old television, and a game console within.

Asuka had a bag of Cheetos or maybe a knock-off of them, with about a quarter of the bag poured into a bowl next to her. She licked the powdery cheese coating off her fingers as she lay flat on her stomach, just a meter or so in front of the television. She was dressed in tight pajamas with a cat pattern—nothing I recognized as hers, so I thought maybe Horaki had given them to her for her stay. It would've been just like Asuka to forget something like that.

After a short silence, Asuka tossed the game controller aside and kicked her bare feet back and forth idly. "Okay, so," she said. "How's life?"

"It's rough," I admitted, "but we're trying to hang in there. How are you?"

She shrugged, despite not getting up. "I'm fine."

"Are you?"

She looked back with one eye. "Why do you ask?" she asked coyly. "Do you want me not to be?"

"Ah, uh, huh?" I eked out.

She rolled over and threw herself to her feet. She was a bit wobbly, but I dare say that worked in her favor, for she sauntered up to me with those wavering, back-and-forth steps and took me by the collar with her thumb and forefinger.

"Asuka, I, uh—you know, Maya said you weren't wrong. That's something I wanted to say, at least."

"Pff." Asuka rolled her eyes. "As if I need Maya to tell me I'm right."

"Then, you know, _I'll_ say you were right, then."

She eyed me from under her eyebrows. "Shinji, you don't know anything about metaphysical biology."

"That's true, but—"

"So, is that it?"

I blinked. "Huh?"

"That's all you wanted to say?" she said, stepping closer—so close I could smell the cheese on her breath—not like I cared. "That's all you wanted to do here?"

I shook my head. "I wanted to see you."

"You did?" she said, raising both eyebrows.

"Yeah."

"Good."

She leaned in, and I took her. I kissed her in spite of the taste of Cheetos on her lips, or the sweat on her body and in her hair because she hadn't bathed for a day or two. Actually, you know what? I kissed her in part because of those things, because they told me I was kissing _her_.

She pressed her body against mine, and her fingers caught the button of my pants. She broke the kiss, but I put my lips to her neck instead. "Do you want me, Shinji?" she asked.

"Yes!"

"Do you need me? Do you need me so bad your life isn't complete without me?"

"Yes, Asuka! Yes!"

She made a soft, satisfied sound. "Mm, I like that."

But her fingers on my pants gave way, and she pulled back. She straightened her pajamas along with my shirt, and with a more measured, thoughtful look, she said,

"I like that a lot. And I might like it a little too much."

"Asuka…"

"It could be," said Asuka, "that's the only thing I really like."

I closed the gap between us, and I took her into my arms—just for a hug this time. "If that's how you feel," I said, "you don't have to do anything else. You don't have to go back there. Whatever you choose to do, I'll support you."

"And not go behind my back when you think I have a problem?"

"If you listen a little more when I tell you I think you have a problem."

Asuka huffed at that, but she smiled and nestled herself closer to me. "That's fine."

A pause. Asuka sighed heavily, but she didn't say anything for a while.

"What do you think you want to do?" I asked.

"Dunno. Would like to beat that game and then think about it, maybe."

"You want me to go?"

"Gimme a minute," she said, "but after that—you know, it's hard to concentrate on a game when someone else is watching you."

I smiled and laughed, and I held her all the tighter.

"Hold on; I'm not finished," she went on. "About what I said yesterday…"

"What about it?"

"If you want to keep working with Nozomi, or just whatever else—you don't have to do anything more, you know?"

"Maybe," I said. "But I'll have to think about that, too."

She let out a breath, settling into my arms.

"We both have things to think about," she said.

I smiled at that, and I leaned over to Asuka's side. I whispered something in her ear, and she nodded in turn.

#

I left Asuka in Horaki's care for the rest of the evening. Asuka still had some thinking to do about her future, after all, and I felt Horaki would benefit from the company—if nothing else, to help take her mind off Nozomi. Of course, I think Horaki would've insisted on letting Asuka stay anyway.

I went back to my apartment, rather than return to the base. It gave me the opportunity to clear the dust from the dining room table and to eat a home-cooked meal of my own. I did a little redecorating, too, and I put up the picture of my parents on my nightstand. It's true that they were not the most loving people, and they worked toward and accomplished things I didn't necessarily agree with.

But they were my parents, whether they deserved my love or not. I couldn't agree with what they'd chosen to do, but there was something about them I could safely emulate: their drive to get something done, to make a plan and carry it out. My parents were ambitious people. They were ambitious for the wrong things, but they pushed unceasingly to make things happen, to get stuff done. It would've been wrong of me to condemn them entirely for what they strove for. Their capacity to strive for a goal—that was worth learning in spite of who they were.

I hadn't yet come to follow that path. I'd wandered aimlessly for two years, not really knowing where I'd end up or what I would do in the future. Even that night, with Asuka at the Horaki home and away from me, I still didn't know what I would do with myself going forward. There weren't a lot of things I felt I was good at or that would suit me. I'd learned to play the cello and thought I was competent, at least, but few people can make a career of music. I'd been out of school as well, not wanting the attention. What could someone like me do in the future?

I didn't have the answer to that, and with Angels still roaming the globe, it felt premature for me to think so far ahead, but there was something I could do in the present time. I could go to the base and sit at my station in the control room. I could go there and shed the anxieties that might cast a fog in my head.

I'm not a perfect person. I certainly wasn't one then, but there was something I could strive for, even if I had nothing else. It was the thing I whispered in Asuka's ear that night. It was the reason I could bear sitting in the control room chair even as Nozomi fought creatures from the void of space.

It was the reason people could rise from the sea at all.

"It's okay to be here," I'd said to her, and my words pushed some strands of hair aside around Asuka's ear. "It's okay to be here even if you're not totally happy with who you are."

"Thanks," she'd said, and she'd smiled.

It was the smile of someone who believed she should show nothing else in the moment, of someone who wanted desperately for the smile to be real.

"I hope so," she said at last.

I hoped she'd come to believe it in her heart, too.

#

Asuka came back to the base the next morning.

As much as I would've liked for her to spend more time away, Asuka's presence was sorely needed. The Angels had returned to the Asian mainland. The next iteration of the puncture engine was still in development, even with Asuka's previous ideas acting as a foundation. While we enjoyed her help for the timebeing, Asuka was quick to point out that her long-term future was still up in the air:

"I'm just helping out until the team can get by without me," she told us at breakfast. "After that," she said with a shrug, "who knows? We'll see."

With that goal in mind, Asuka had planned to spend only a half-day at the base: in the morning, she joined Maya's team for nonstop research and development, but for the afternoon, she'd hoped to take some time for herself—playing video games, looking for other job opportunities, or whatever else. She'd been in touch with her degree advisor about coming back to that team as well, but Misato had a different idea. After the morning briefing, Misato and I talked for a bit about Asuka. Misato was curious about the arrangement Asuka and Maya had worked out, and she remarked,

"Maybe Asuka need isn't a change of place but a change of pace."

I frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, nothing," said Misato, putting on a sly smile, and she skipped down the corridor toward the research building. Grown women aren't supposed to skip in public—never mind a grown woman who was also a general in GSDF—but that was Misato. She'd skip like a loon if she wanted to. She'd run with an idea if she wanted to. No amount of arguing would convince her otherwise, or so I believed.

When I found out what her idea was, I realized I couldn't have been more right.

#

In the afternoon, we reconvened in the control room for simulated exercises. This round of exercises was unusual, though: Maya and her team of combat controllers were on hand, providing feedback as if they were really monitoring the Eva and Angels in a battle simulation. As Nozomi battled a facsimile of the Fractal Angel, Maya chimed in with an idea.

"Tell her to target the point of the Angel's spikes."

All eyes in the control room turned to the person at the Plugcom station: Asuka. She kept a finger on her headset's transmit switch and asked,

"The spikes? Are they a weak spot?"

"For the purposes of this exercise, yes," said Maya.

Asuka cast a questioning glance to Hyuga, who nodded in agreement, and she got on the horn to Nozomi.

"Okay, Nozomi—we want you to attack the spikes on that snowflake Angel."

"Spikes?" came the pilot's response on the radio. "Okay. Just any spike? None in particular?"

"I'd like to know that, too," said Asuka, casting a glance across the aisle. "Seems like the instructions are far too vague, right?"

Maya bristled at the suggestion, but Hyuga intervened. "Tell Nozomi," he interrupted, "that she should go ahead with that and we'll get her more information as we can."

Narrowing her eyes, Asuka cued the mic again. "Looks like that's all we have for now," she said, in a calmer voice. "We'll get back to you when we know more."

"All right, got it."

Nozomi went to work in the simulator, bashing virtual fists against a digital facsimile of an AT-field, and as she did so, Asuka slumped back in her chair a bit, letting out a hissing breath.

For my part, I watched this unfold alongside Misato in the upstairs observation room. The simulated radio transmissions poured into the room through a portable speaker, and during this lull, Misato and I discussed how it was going.

"Misato," I said, "if this is Plan A for what to do if I'm fired, maybe I shouldn't be worried."

She laughed at that. "Cute, but don't be too smug. Asuka's more than capable of improving."

That much I knew well. Still, I had another question on my mind.

"What if she doesn't take to this change?" I asked. "You'd still support her walking away?"

Misato shrugged. "I can't make her work here, and I wouldn't even if I could. Either she wants to be here or she doesn't. If doing this helps us and makes her happy, great! If not…" Misato sighed, and she peered over the bottom edge of the window. "Then she should find something that she won't be tempted to burn out on."

Downstairs and through the glass, Asuka stood up from the Plugcom seat, planting both hands on the table. "Look, this is what I have. I don't have anything else to tell you. You're the pilot. Kill the damn thing."

Wincing, Misato got up and made for the door. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

"It'd be nice if it were built before the Germanic tribes sack it," I said.

Misato merely waved a hand in understanding as she walked away, disappearing down the adjoining hallway, and it wasn't too long before she was downstairs to talk to Hyuga. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were watching Asuka talk to Nozomi the whole time. It wasn't hard to guess.

Asuka, for her part, kept pressing on throughout the exercises, but they took a toll on her. That was evident for the rest of the session and into the afternoon.

When those exercises ended, the team retired for the day, and we had a short dinner. It was only then that I really caught up with Asuka and saw just how much the day's activities had worn her down.

"Everywhere I go, there's a question," she moaned, pulling at some of her hair. " 'No, I don't know what will happen if you attack that Angel's center, and no, I haven't simulated what would happen if we implanted a second S2 organ just to power the puncture engine.' Who thinks that's a good idea?"

I walked with her back from dinner to our quarters. "Someone in the lab did?"

"No shit," she said, sighing. "Maya wants Aoyama to take over my duties. He's nice, works hard and all, but…eugh, I don't know. How long is that going to take—a month? Two months? This could all be over by that point."

"So that's your plan?" I asked, stepping beside her. "In a month or two, whatever happens, you want to be gone?"

"Yeah." At that, her step slowed a bit, and she smiled. "It'll be nice to do something else, I think."

"Even with all this going on?"

She sighed again. "I know Misato has hopes for this little experiment of hers. I'm trying it. But I talked to my advisor, and she says I can come back to my thesis work at any time. I think that would be good."

"That's what's going to make you happy?"

"I think so?" She gave me a half-smile. "It's something that's mine, I think. Not like this, where you're just a small cog in a big machine." She frowned. "Even if the fate of the world rests on that machine working."

"And it does."

"Yeah, it does." She looked aside. "But, there are a lot of people who can do that for this project."

"You think so?"

"Probably."

I stopped walking. "Asuka…"

"I hope so." She stopped too, and she turned to face me. She met my gaze—and wavered a bit. "If there's not, yet I'd rather be doing something that I can really make a difference in…then I don't know. I really don't know."

I nodded. I started walking again, and as she settled into step beside me, I put an arm around her. She was tense at first, and I said, "That's okay. It's okay not to know."

She relaxed a bit, and she let out a heavy breath. "Thanks," she said. "I appreciate that."

Still, when we made it to our quarters, Asuka let me go inside, but she stayed out.

"I'm gonna go back still," she said quietly, hands in her pockets.

"You can come back anytime," I said. "I'll still be here."

"I know." She smiled slightly. "I appreciate that, too. I just…" She looked aside. "You know?"

"Yeah, I do." I touched the side of her shoulder. "Take care, Asuka."

"You, too, Shinji."

With that, she walked away, hands in her labcoat's pockets, and she took every step with a slow, unassuming stride.

For as long as I'd known her, Asuka had been larger than life in every way, yet at that moment, the bunker's cramped hallway dwarfed her.

#

Two days later, the Angels made their move on Beijing.

We were ready, of course. Satellite imaging had told us the Angels' destination long before they arrived. The Chinese had mustered their full forces to defend the shore, establishing a buffer zone to the Beijing beach. In this area, any invaders coming by sea would face withering fire from artillery.

And those that evaded the buffer zone faced Unit-14.

" 'So, Nozomi, how was your day?' 'Not bad, Hikari, just smashed some aliens with my foot. How about you?' "

Nozomi passed the time by…well, I think you get the idea. To her, the hordes of alien creatures were mere pests to her, like ants or fleas. She squashed the white, faceless walkers underfoot, and they dissolved into LCL before their bones could crunch underneath her. She batted down the winged shriekers, and they liquefied themselves rather than cling to life crippled and broken.

So while Nozomi and Unit-14 could not kill the enemy so easily, the Eva was enough of a distraction for the People's Liberation Army to hold their ground and maintain an effective bombardment—which could kill the enemy fast enough that they wouldn't regenerate.

But all of this was time-wasting more than anything. Three Angels were on the way, and for this, we were ready:

Asuka and I, that is.

Hyuga had another station set up next to mine, so we were both on duty as plug communicators for the mission. If something extremely technical needed to be told to Nozomi—something in Asuka's expertise—that would be her job. I'd stay as the main communicator for the rest of the mission otherwise.

Until then, the two of us were stuck sharing a cubicle.

"Is this all you do?" she asked me at one point, gesturing at a set of video feeds. "You watch Nozomi, you watch what's going on outside—that's it?"

I jerked my head across the aisle, toward the systems monitoring stations. "Is it different over there?"

"Sure," she said, arms folded. "You have readouts, charts, graphs, tables—all of that. You have to be constantly reading and looking for faults. Here, what do you do?"

I pushed a stack of papers to her side of the cubicle. "Here, we review battle plans and go over them in our heads until we dream about them."

She eyed the stack cautiously. "And that's all you can do," she said, and she ran her thumb over the papers' edges, feeling the full thickness of the stack. Then she sighed and slid them away.

It wasn't long after that the Angels came.

The Mist came first, strangling Chinese aircraft that the shriekers hadn't yet harassed and brought down. Planes and helicopters fell like meteorites, showering the city in fire, and all along, the Mist floated high and out of reach.

Then, the Fractal and the Spider came. The Spider led the way, crushing all opposition underneath its needle-like legs as it arrived from the south, and the Fractal followed silently, settling down on a mountaintop to the southwest. That started the clock.

"All right, people, it's time," said Misato, rising from her station at the back of the room. "Let's make it count this time. Wipe the bastards off our planet. I don't want to have to chase them down again. Major Hyuga, are we go?"

He nodded. "We are, General."

"Then let's go to work."

Hyuga motioned to me, and I got on the microphone. "Nozomi, we're on."

"About time." Nozomi shook out her hand, and she maneuvered the Evangelion off the rugged, rocky shore. Unit-14 waded out of the fire zone and into the city in the hills, with mortars and shriekers buzzing over the Eva's head.

The Mist Angel took notice, coming after Nozomi with a dozen ephemeral tendrils.

"Knives, Nozomi," I said into the headset.

A pair of prog knives popped out of Unit-14's shoulder pylons, and Nozomi sliced through the tendrils. The cut ends dissipated into the air as a blue haze, trailing in Unit-14's wake, and for the moment, that was all the Mist angel dared to do.

"Target's just on the other side of the peak," I said. "Ready for the underbelly?"

"You got it."

Unit-14 dashed over the jagged peak and flew into the valley on the other side, where most of New Beijing lay. There, the Spider Angel ran rampant against Chinese artillery pieces, but Nozomi was ready: she slid Unit-14 down the rocky slope, underneath the belly of the Angel. Two spiny legs stabbed at her but sank into the rock instead.

Then, when she passed directly underneath the Angel's body, two rockets fired from her back, boosting her toward the core. She grabbed the base of one leg, dangling from it as she reached with her free hand—her free fist.

"Puncture engine activated," said one of the systems controllers.

"Am I good?" asked Nozomi.

"Yes, take it down!" I said.

And she obliged: with one punch, she blasted through the black disc of the Spider's central body. The core within shattered, and the Spider collapsed in an inert heap.

"Okay! Next?" said Nozomi, sticking a landing at the base of the corpse.

"Next!" I said. "Second target, Fractal!"

Nozomi closed in on the Fractal, and this time, the Mist posed more of an obstacle: it grabbed at Unit-14 from all sides, taking the Eva by the ankles.

"Jet pack, jet pack!" I cried.

Nozomi hit full blast on the jet pack, and the Eva yanked itself free, setting fire to some of the Angel's ephemeral body in the process. Streaks of blue fire lit up the morning sky, and the Mist recoiled, undulating wildly and letting out a warbling screech.

"Hm, looks like you don't need me," said Asuka, who let her transmit switch dangle with the rest of the cord. "This is going well."

"So far," I said, putting on a smile. With a pen, I pointed to the Fractal Angel on a monitor. "Do you think we have a shot with that?"

Asuka cleared her throat, frowning. "We'd better," she said.

And we'd soon find out. Nozomi and Unit-14 stormed up to the Fractal—which made no response in turn. It just sat there, gathering energy to wipe out the city and all its defenders.

"Engine activated," reported the controller again.

"All right," said Nozomi, "here we go!"

BANG! Static burst through my headset. The Fractal's AT field manifested as translucent layers of light. Nozomi groaned and grunted, and under the weight of her effort (and the Eva's fist), the first of those AT field layers gave way, snapping and reconnecting like a cosmic rubber band.

I shot a glanced at the systems controllers, and Maya gave a cautious, positive nod.

"You're doing good, Nozomi," I said on the radio. "Just keep that up, and—"

BANG! Another burst of static. The second AT field layer snapped, and the Fractal Angel glowed hotter, vibrating wildly.

"Unknown signal pattern," said one of the detection controllers.

"Is it releasing the energy now?" demanded Hyuga. "Is it ready?"

"No, Ops, pattern does not match previous releases. This is—"

"Whoa!" cried Nozomi, and Unit-14 backed off.

Probably because the Angel was gone.

Or rather, it wasn't clear where the Angel had gone, for the hillside around Nozomi had turned into a hall of mirrors—or at least, the closest thing to that yet still as large as a mountain outside a city.

It was as if space itself had shattered into a thousand shards, and everywhere Nozomi looked, there was a fragment of Unit-14 staring back at her. These fractures weren't sharp—they had no substance to them-but Nozomi moved through them hesitantly, as if the Angel had glued kaleidoscopes to her eyes.

"Ikari?" she cried, her voice faint and fraught with static. "Ikari, you there?"

The video feed went awash with pixels to a blank blue screen. I rose, watching the forward projectors for an external feed. "I'm here, Nozomi, but I've lost your camera. Can you hear me?"

"Barely. Okay, so, this wasn't in the simulator. I'm gonna need an idea. You guys got one?"

I cast a desperate glance at Maya and company, but she only shook her head as the rest of her staff frantically went through manuals and other material. "Tell her we're working on it," she said.

"They're working on it," I said.

"Yeah? You guys working on this, too?"

The Mist—it enveloped the fractured hillside. Scattered images of Unit-14 cutting and slicing at it came through the fragmented hall of mirrors, but Nozomi was overwhelmed. The blue Mist pressed in on Unit-14's AT field like a vat of acid to a metal plate.

At that, Asuka slid away from our cubicle an carried her headset in hand, stretching the cord to its limit. She went across the aisle, to the systems control stations, but she didn't say a word—not at first, at least. She merely listened as Maya and the others worked on a solution.

"Look, this is a shared AT field," said one of the scientists. "The engine is working—and it's giving the Angel the means to project what it wants in the shared region where both fields are connected."

"This is a form of contamination," Maya concluded. "But not mental—all of space is affected."

At that, Asuka rapped her knuckle on a cubicle wall. "If the Angel is using the shared AT field against us, should we turn the engine off?"

"Have to, definitely," said another scientist. "Punt on this mission and get the Eva to safety."

"Unless," said Maya, "we use the engine to manipulate both Angels' AT fields at once."

One of the scientists peered at the front projector screens, with one showing the view from a satellite feed. "It _is_ an amorphous Angel we're dealing with. The interaction between that one and the other could be destructive."

"Or leave Nozomi vulnerable to both Angels at once," said Asuka. "We need to time this down to the millisecond."

"We can do that," said Maya.

Asuka scoffed and rubbed her forehead. "It's going to be very tight. What do we need her to do?"

The scientists gathered closer to hammer out some of the details, getting Hyuga's approval for their proposal when they were finished. When they were through, Asuka marched right back to her station next to me, and she snugly put on her headset.

"Looks like I'm on!" she said. "You ready?"

"I am," I said. "Are you?"

"Yeah, of course!" she said, nodding. She nodded several times at that. "Of course…"

I scooted over to her side of the cubicle. "You need me to get you transmitting?"

"No, no, I got it!" She clicked the transmit control on the monitor twice in rapid succession—turning it off and on—and then a third time, and she cleared her throat. "Manoah Base Control to Evangelion Unit-14, do you read?"

"I've got you, Soryu. Please tell me we're not gonna do all the formality every time we talk."

Asuka laughed, and she straightened herself up in her chair. "Spoilsport," she said. "Okay, Nozomi, Maya's got an idea for you: you should get a visual instrument overlay in front of you now. Do you see it?"

"Okay, yeah," said Nozomi, her voice echoing slightly in the static. "What am I looking at here?"

"Best-guess signals for the Angels' locations. You should see a smear of purple color for that cloud, but the snowflake should be white. Do you see it?"

"Yeah. This is your 'best guess'?" echoed Nozomi.

"This isn't an exact science. Just cut or blast your way through to the snowflake. We'll cut the puncture engine remotely, and then you need to be ready, all right? You need to be ready to reassert your own AT field as soon as the engine cuts out."

"And then?" asked Nozomi.

"Kill the thing," said Asuka.

"Okay."

Unit-14 went to work. Beneath the fragmented distortion of space, the Eva cut itself free of two misty tendrils. Nozomi grunted, and the Eva's eyes shot a beam of hard light through the dome. The distortion cracked there, and the Mist shuddered like a deer with an arrow through its back.

The entry plug video came back to life with only a few stray spots of pixelation. Nozomi shook the fingers on her left hand and coughed.

"We've got you back, Nozomi!" cried Asuka.

"Not yet you don't!" Nozomi caught her breath and cut herself free from the remaining mass of mist that had bound her. On her display, a white false-color blob dominated the view in front of her. Despite a jumble of reflected images, she barreled through the distorted space to attack it.

"Ready, Asuka!" cried Maya.

Asuka hunkered down in front of her monitor. "Okay, Nozomi, when you see the engine deactivation warning, you need to get back, all right? Ready?"

"Yeah, do it!"

"Here we go!"

The ambient hum in the entry plug diminished, and a red box flashed in front of Nozomi's eyes. She turned around and bolted from the scene—the scene of the kaleidoscope world shattering back into reality, with the Mist surrounding the Fractal Angel in a swirling, irregular pattern.

"Now!" cried Asuka. "Kill that snowflake!"

Nozomi planted the Eva's foot in the ground, and she lunged back at the Fractal, stabbing with a prog knife from the right. The Fractal's AT field manifested itself:

As a distorted barrier covering both the Fractal and the long, extended length of the Mist Angel around it.

A stretched-thin layer shattered at the knife's pressure, and Nozomi stabbed harder, putting the Eva's full weight behind the blow. She brought a second knife to bear from her left hand, prying the AT field apart the way a hunter tears meat from a carcass.

Because, after all, the Fractal Angel was as good as dead by that point.

Nozomi sank the Eva's knives into the Fractal's main body, and the creature radiated with light—it shattered!

"Yeah!" cried Asuka, pumping a fist from her seat.

"Asuka!" Misato shot a glare from the commander's station. "Mission's not over yet."

Sinking into her seat, Asuka put her gaze straight ahead. "Yes, Mom," she said, and even Misato cracked a slight smile at that.

Why?

Because the mission had been made. The day was won.

The Mist Angel retreated. New Beijing was safe. The armies of the enemy went back to the sea and dissolved themselves to fight another day.

And to a man—from Nozomi saying, "Good job, Soryu," as the rescue plane picked her up to Maya giving Asuka a relieved smile as we left the control room for the day—everyone was happy for Asuka and the role she played that day.

But, as for Asuka herself, she sat at her station in the control room for a time, and she didn't say anything on our way out, either. At dinner she was quiet and picked at her food more than anything.

No, it wasn't until later that night, when I'd already cleaned my teeth and was heading to bed, that I heard from her—with a knock on my base quarters door.

I opened that door, and she was there. She had her key card in one hand and said, "I know I have a key, but I thought it'd be better to ask first."

She had her white labcoat folded and tucked under her arm, too.

"Ask me what?" I responded.

"Can I stay tonight?" she asked, looking aside.

"Just tonight?"

She shook her head at that, blushing slightly. "If you'd have me, no."

I welcomed her inside, taking her by the hand. It was, after all, our home away from home.

She left that labcoat folded up on the plastic desk we'd been furnished with. That was fine by me, of course. I didn't do much work there, and she could use the space:

The space to be herself.


	9. Faltering

**Faltering**  
 _Chapter Nine_

It was during the war that I tried learning to draw.

By that point, I wasn't nearly as good as Nozomi. The faces I made were angular and jagged. I struggled with finding the right size for eyes, but I worked at it every now and then. If I had ten or fifteen minutes to kill, I'd pull out a sketchpad and do my best imitation of an artist.

I won't pretend I was any good, but I did find it helpful for focus, and to unwind. Typically, I tried to draw something that had happened so I could better understand what went on and whether I wished something had gone differently. The sight of Asuka leading Nozomi to victory in Beijing was one of those, and of course, I didn't wish for any of that to change.

People were difficult for me, though—especially their faces. I could get the general shape of people just fine, though, so I gravitated to scenes where the faces weren't so important: for instance, the sight of seven figures in my father's office, sitting at table while they proposed to change the fate of their people.

In that case, I ignored their faces because I knew those faces were fake anyway. What they looked like didn't matter. What mattered was what those seven souls decided to do.

Ayanami came to us because of what those seven decided to do.

The Angels came to us because of that, too.

We existed—we lived and breathed and died—because of them.

There were seven of them: one who went by the name _Rei Ayanami_ , another by the name _Kaworu Nagisa_ , and five others still—with names in their native tongue—whom I didn't know as well. I drew them with shaded, black faces, in part because the glare of light from outside—shining through vast windows that circled the whole room—drowned out their features.

I drew most of them with their eyes focused on the audience, but one of them looked back through the fourth wall, as if to stare directly into my soul.

"That's not bad."

So said Hyuga, who peered over my shoulder.

I flipped the page, presenting him a blank slate, and I put the pencil aside. "I need more practice," I said.

"Well, I guess we know exactly the person to teach you."

We were in the control room, which sat empty but for the two of us—a typical setup for a morning of simulation training. Hyuga nodded to the front screen, which showed a wireframe entry plug—also empty.

"You think dinner didn't agree with her?" he asked.

I winced. "Did it agree with you?"

"I think anyone who could get along with that meal deserves a Nobel Prize. I was at war with it all night."

I laughed, and I picked up my sketchbook to go check on Nozomi. Sure, maybe I was a little too self-conscious about it in front of Hyuga, but that's typical, right? You naturally want to keep something away from other people until you're satisfied with it, and I wasn't yet. I could still do better. Nozomi would've been the first to say so—and also the first to congratulate me when I showed progress. I admit, I was looking forward to some more of that, too.

Maybe that was the most unexpected thing, for me: I've never had a lot of people I looked forward to seeing. That's just not my personality, and I think, at the time Misato roped me into all this, I probably wasn't in the state of mind to try to make new friends.

Yet somehow, after a rough start, I managed to make friends with this standoffish girl—even though I didn't want to bring anyone else into my life, even though she thought I was pathetic. It could've been a lot worse: sometimes, her artwork was the easiest thing to read about her.

One thing I knew for sure, though, was that she didn't tend to run late, so I went to her quarters and knocked. "Hey, it's me," I said. "Everything all right in there?"

After a few moments, the door creaked open—just by a sliver. Nozomi peered out with strands of disheveled hair in front of her eyes. "Hey," she said weakly. "Sorry, must've lost track of time."

"Are you sick?" I asked. "If you need the infirmary—"

"No, no, I'm good! I'm good." She wasn't looking at me. She had her sketchpad in hand. She was drawing even as she talked to me.

I pushed on the door. "Nozomi—"

"No, Ikari—"

There were pages on the floor.

There were pages and pages and pages of drawings on the floor, ripped out from the sketchpad's binding with frayed edges. They covered the room like a carpet—one decorated in huge, sweeping pencil strokes and jagged lines.

"Stop looking!" cried Nozomi. "You don't need to see!"

Even then, she was still sketching.

I pulled on her sketchpad, and it slid out of her hands. I took the pencil, too, but her arms and hands stayed in place. They made phantom sketching motions in the air, and Nozomi's eyes stayed on the place where the sketchpad had once been.

"You don't need to see," she said, shaking. "Stop looking. You don't need to see…."

#

I knew this would happen.

This is what happens to people who pilot Eva. They go out and fight, and then they break. It was only a matter of time. I'd pretended I could stop it. I wanted to believe I could make the difference. I, and I alone, could step in and keep Nozomi whole. That was a big reason why I agreed to be her handler in the first place.

How hopelessly naive I was, right? I never had a chance of keeping her together, but I could hold her up—I could carry her—even when the weight of the world pressed her down.

And that's what I did. I carried Nozomi. I carried her to the infirmary. She was in no state to walk—nor even to break away from me even if she resisted. And sadly, it wasn't difficult, either. Nozomi was quite light.

When we arrived at the infirmary, the staff had me lay her on a bed. They closed a privacy screen and worked on her. Even so, I stood outside the infirmary door, and I listened.

"Hey, Nozomi?" asked one of the medics. "Nozomi, how are you doing? Are you with me?"

A pause.

"Good, that's good. We're just gonna have you get some rest and get some fluids in you, all right? Sound good? Great. Just relax. There you go. Relax."

Another pause. The medic's chipper voice lowered considerably.

"Okay, what do we have?"

"160 over 100," said another medic. "Pulse 96."

"Right, let's settle her down then. Get her some rest, and I'll get the captain."

The head medic emerged from the privacy screen, and his gaze met mine. "We'll know more when the captain is here," he said. "Right now, she's stable."

"That's good," I said, "thank you."

He peered out the doorway, clipboard in hand. "Do you want to come in? Sit down?"

"Is there anywhere?" I asked.

He shook his head. "If anything serious happens, we have to convert the exercise room into triage space. They have us crammed in here pretty tight."

I nodded. "That's all right then."

The medic gave me a respectful nod in return, and he took a seat at his desk. The infirmary staff had it under control: they were monitoring Nozomi's vitals, and they were calling for the head doctor to come take a look. She'd be in good hands. They'd take care of her. If she were bleeding somewhere or just hadn't eaten, they'd fix that. They could fix a lot of things like that.

Even so, I paced about the outside of the infirmary. I clenched my hand into a fist and opened it, feeling the muscles contract and the bones shift within my arm.

I took a peek inside the infirmary door. The blue privacy sheet blocked me from seeing Nozomi. The only evidence she was alive was the rhythmic beeping of the EKG. It beeped and beeped, slow and steady—no doubt thanks to the drugs they'd given her to make her sleep.

But I wasn't asleep. I was still there. I was still awake. I couldn't dismiss this as something hypothetical, as a bad dream.

It was inevitable, right?

Piloting Eva breaks you one way or another—in body or mind. Perhaps both. Piloting Eva had broken Nozomi into pieces, yet I was still there—still whole, still intact. I clenched my hand and felt all of that. Eva broke her and cursed me to still be there, to still be alive.

I took that hand—the hand with all its muscles and bones enslaved by my brain—and punched an exposed pipe on the corridor wall.

CLANG!

The head medic peered out of the doorway, phone and clipboard in hand. He put the handset aside, asking,

"Are you all right?"

I nodded, gritting my teeth, and I wriggled each of my fingers. "I'm good!" I said. "Just fine!"

The medic frowned at that, but he said nothing more about it. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but the general's calling for you."

Wringing my hand, I followed him inside, and he offered me his desk and the phone. He disappeared down the row of beds, and I put the handset to my ear.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hey," said Misato. "Our girl's not doing too well, is she?"

I glanced at the blue curtain. "No, she's not. I don't know what happened. I just found her like this—shaken."

"That's rough. Are you hanging in there?"

I huffed, and I wiggled the fingers on my hand again. "That's not that important right now, is it?"

"It is a little," she said. "We've got to have someone who can train pilots, after all. Angels don't wait for a fair fight, do they?"

I sighed. "No, they don't."

"Kazuto is on the way to simulation," she said. "Are you up for it?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'll be there."

"All right. Let me know how it goes."

I hung up. It was quiet then, in the infirmary, with only Nozomi's heartbeat breaking the silence.

I drummed my fingers, sore as they were, on the head medic's desk. I watched the privacy screen ripple slightly—from Nozomi's breath, I wondered, or was it just an air current?

I sighed, and I picked up my things—my sketchpad and pencil. I went to that curtain and slid it open.

"Oh, hello there." That was the second medic, who was measuring out some fluids for an IV bag. "Do you need a minute?"

I shook my head, and I just looked Nozomi over for a moment. The medics had already cut her clothes off and put her in a hospital gown. They'd taken her hairband too, so her short ponytail was totally undone, leaving stray hairs scattered about her pillow. Her mouth was open slightly as she slept, exposing a few millimeters of her front teeth—probably the only time I'd seen those teeth, considering she seldom smiled wide enough to bare them.

I took Nozomi's hand for a moment, and I admit I was foolish enough to look at the EKG display and hope her heartbeat might change, but it didn't. She was still out.

"I'm still here," I said to her, forcing a smile to my lips.

And I tucked my sketching pencil into her hand.

#

Our primary backup pilot was Kazuto Sasaki.

Sasaki had several aspects of his personality and talent working against him. He was introverted. His synch rate was a few points lower than Nozomi's, and he could get flustered in complex situations, particularly if he made a mistake.

In spite of all that, Sasaki was our best option. He was intelligent, and his synch rates didn't fluctuate much on a day-to-day basis. He had family support for him being a pilot as well. I hoped that meant he would not succumb to stress over the short term. We only needed him to be the pilot as long as Nozomi was laid up.

To meet Sasaki for his first exercises as pilot number 1, I trudged upstairs to the control room level, and when I swiped in to open the doors, Hyuga was quick to greet me.

"I heard about Nozomi," he said. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," I told him, and I plopped into my station's chair. I tossed my sketchpad on my desk and traded it for a folder of exercises. "Sasaki's coming to take her spot, right? Has he been briefed about the exercise agenda?"

A voice beside me answered, "We just went over it."

Asuka. She turned around in her swiveling chair and held up a folder identical to mine.

"Hey there," she said, shooting me a sheepish grin. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, really," I said, laughing it off. "People are looking at me like _I'm_ sick or something, but I'm fine. Look, see?" I flexed my arms. "If you look hard enough, you can almost see muscle!"

Asuka folded her arms and shot me a faux-cross look. "This is _not_ helping."

"It's not? I'm really proud of this!"

She hissed at that, shaking her head, and she slapped me on the back with her folder. "If you're fine, then let's get to work, Muscle Man. Are we ready to go?"

I put on my headset and settled into my seat. "Let's find out." I pressed the transmit button on the cord. "Hello, Sasaki? Are you with us?"

A boy's image appeared on my monitor and the middle projector screen at the front of the room. Sasaki was already strapped into a simulation entry plug. His hair was sandy in color and cut into a bowl. He was small for a boy his age, and for this reason, the plug chair seemed like an uncomfortable fit for him. He shifted in his seat several times even in the span of a single conversation, like this one.

"I—I'm here, Ikari," he said. "I can hear you."

"That's good," I said, standing at my station. "Sorry we asked you down here on such short notice."

"It's all right." His eyes went back and forth. "Um, is it true—about Horaki?"

"She might be out for a while, yes," I said. "It's likely you're going to be the pilot for the next mission."

He looked aside—forward in the entry plug, but away from the camera. "Right away?" he said.

"We have Angels in the Russian Far East, so it could be anytime," I said. "Let's see if we can get you up to speed, all right?"

Sasaki nodded at that, gripping the controls tightly. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Good," I said, and I flipped through the exercise folder to the first scenario. "All right, this is an extraction scenario. You've engaged the enemy but have been damaged. Your right arm will not work for the duration of the scenario. Get to the extraction point before it's overrun. Got it?"

He gulped and nodded.

I looked to Hyuga, who gave me the OK sign, and I started counting down. "Exercise begins in three, two, one, start!"

The screens came to life. A virtual cityscape formed, and the virtual Unit-14 stood among the buildings. Its right arm was bent, broken at the forearm, and Sasaki cradled the wound.

"Extraction waypoint is up now," I said. "One kilometer south by southeast. Sixty seconds until the extraction point is overrun. Go!"

Sasaki made a move down one of the city streets, but he faced resistance: the Mist Angel. The Mist floated above Unit-14, spreading its airy tendrils across the buildings' faces. Where the Mist touched, metal corroded and withered, like plants exposed to acid rain.

Unit-14 drew a prog knife with its left hand, and it barreled down the cramped street blade-first. It cut through the mist with repeated slicing motions, and the remains of each corrosive tendril was like a spray of confetti against the Eva's AT field.

But Sasaki could only cut where he could see.

CLANK! A white mass attached to Unit-14's head: a three-winged shrieker, which transformed out of its disc-like flying state to clamp down on the Eva's helmet. Two more shriekers latched on to the back and side of the helmet, as though they were magnets to a giant lump of iron. The shriekers spread their wings, blocking Sasaki's vision forward, above, and to one side, and they pressed their round mouthparts against the Eva's armor, drilling into the metal plating.

"Okay, uh, Ikari? Ikari?" Sasaki recoiled from the creatures that were just in front of the Eva's face. "What can I do here?"

Asuka and I exchanged a glance. Asuka shrugged, shaking her head.

I said, "It's all right; just fight them off. They're not strong enough to stay attached if you resist."

"Okay, I'll do that." Sasaki put the prog knife back in the Eva's shoulder pylon, and he started pulling the shriekers off like ticks.

"No, wait!' I cried. "Without your knife, you don't have anything to fight off the tendrils!"

Sure enough, Sasaki plucked two of the shriekers off the Eva's face, but a pair of tendrils grabbed the Eva, taking it by the legs and neck. They carried the Eva skyward, wrapping it up in burning mist—like a frog suspended in boiling water.

An alarm sounded, and the virtual cityscape and Angel vanished.

"Okay," I said, "you didn't make it to the extraction point in time. It was overrun, and you were stranded. We need to find a way not to get held up under fire like that."

"Yeah, you're right," said Sasaki. He shook his head, blinked, and let out a heavy breath. "What do I need to do differently this time?"

"Your knife is the best protection you have against those tendrils," I said. "That's in the briefing, right?"

"Sorry," said Sasaki. "I didn't get a good look at it before I sat down."

Asuka snorted, shaking her head, and she idly flipped through the pages of the exercise regimen.

"Well," I said, after that pause, "now you know. Keep that knife out at all times. If you let that Angel surround you, you're dead. Understand?"

"Yeah." Sasaki nodded. "I think. I got it. Definitely."

I looked to Asuka, but she merely shrugged. "He's gotta go out and do it," she said. "No substitute for that."

Sighing, I scratched my head, rolled my shoulders, and leaned forward at my station. "All right," I said. "Let's do it again. Hyuga?"

He pressed a few keys on his keyboard. "Clock's running."

I nodded. "Three, two, one, go!"

Take two. The virtual cityscape assembled itself from wireframes and polygons, and Sasaki wasted no time in making for the extraction waypoint—he went after it even before the marker appeared on his screen. Down one alley and up another, he ran Unit-14 at a dead sprint, crushing cars and alien walkers underfoot without remorse or regret.

He was prepared for the enemy, too: he drew his prog knife straight away. A tendril formed behind him, but he sliced it in two before it could make a move. When a band of shriekers latched on to the Eva's face, he pried them free with the knife's tip, keeping his vision clear.

"Okay, good," I said, "that's good, we—"

CRUNCH! A section of street collapsed, and from the pit emerged the third alien species: the diggers. Their hollow, tubelike bodies moved by rippling contractions along their lengths, but when they left the earth, their torsos split along a single line, exposing a series of interlocked finger-like appendages—strong enough for walking and dextrous enough to manipulate manhole covers and fire hydrants.

The diggers collapsed one street, burrowing into the pavement and soil beneath, and they wrecked whole city blocks around by releasing water from the mains, rendering footing there treacherous at best.

"Okay, Sasaki, stand by," I said, and I released the transmit switch. "Asuka, what do you think?"

She sat back in her seat, arms folded with a sour expression. "It blows. You might be able to jump the gap, but if he doesn't make it—well, if you do want him to jump it…" She zoomed out on the overhead camera feed, and she pointed out two areas on the screen with the eraser end of a pencil. "Have him back up to here, and maybe try to make it to this building on the left? It would be easier as two—" She stopped. "Whoa, what is he doing?"

Sasaki was already backing Unit-14 up—as far back down that road as he could go without turning a corner.

"Sasaki," I said, "what are you doing?"

"We're out of time, right?"

"Look, _stand by_ means—"

He bolted. Unit-14 charged down the street like a bull.

"Wait!" I cried. "Sasaki, wait!"

The Eva leapt over the sinkhole!

THUD.

But not, you know, _all_ the way over the sinkhole.

The Eva fell into the pit, and the diggers dogpiled Sasaki, burying him in their own flesh. At that point, it was just a matter of letting the clock run out.

Simulation failed. If that had been an arcade game, we'd have lost a good hundred yen by that point.

I shook my head, and I let the headset dangle around my neck. I ran some fingers through my hair, took a breath, and said into my microphone,

"Sasaki, what was that?"

I clicked a button on the communication control panel, so that Sasaki's voice would go through the whole speaker system of the control room. His reply was,

"We were running out of time, right?"

I rubbed my forehead and brushed some stray hairs out of my eyes. "We were working on a solution down here," I said. "That's what we do. We talk to people and try to work things out, so you can focus on the situation in front of you, but that means you've got to _wait_ for us to get there."

"But—" Sasaki looked aside, fumbling for words. "Did you guys have a plan, or not?"

"Yes," I said, "we had a plan!"

Asuka put her headset down. "Shinji…"

"This was the plan," I said, and I took a pencil and my sketchpad to illustrate. "Here's the street, right? And here—" I drew a crude rectangle next to some parallel lines. "Here is a building on the left side of the street. Instead of jumping the whole length of the sinkhole, you jump to the building on the left, then all the way across. This is what we worked out; it takes ten, maybe fifteen seconds to figure out."

"Shinji…" said Asuka.

"So all you have to do," I said, keeping my eyes on Sasaki, "is wait for us and listen to us when we ask you to. You have to trust us and not try to deal with something all by yourself even when we offer help. Do you understand?"

Sasaki stared back at me like a squirrel in front of a busy highway. "Uh, yeah, I—"

"Do you?" I demanded, slapping the sketchpad down on my desk. "Are you sure?"

At that, Asuka reached over, into my side of the cubicle, and she clicked the _mute_ button on the transmit control.

"Do you need a minute?" she asked.

"Do I need a minute?" I echoed.

"Yeah, do you?" Her eyes were steady and stern.

I looked to Hyuga, but he was thoroughly avoiding both of us—he flipped through the folder of exercises, despite it being upside-down.

I looked to Sasaki, who could see us but not hear. He was still sitting at the controls for the simulation, and he trembled—not a lot, since he had a vice's grip on the actuation levers, but that just put more of the shaking into his body. He blinked as he watched us—the way a gazelle on the African savannah dares to blink only when it knows it's safe, for a moment.

"Yeah," I said, bowing my head. "Maybe I need some time."

"Okay." Asuka put a hand on my shoulder. "I'll see you a little later, right?"

"Yeah." I didn't meet her gaze. I just picked up my sketchpad and spare pencil to go.

As I cleared out of the control room, Asuka and Hyuga got started on the next simulation. Asuka took her place at my station, put on my headphones, and got to work talking to Sasaki.

"Okay," she said. "You heard the man. If you hear _standby_ , you'd better be damn sure of yourself before you go against that order, got me? We've got to work as a team here. If you're not sure what to do, just ask. There's no harm in that. If you haven't heard from us in a while, ask. We're probably trying to figure things out. Okay? Got that?" A pause. "Good, now let's try it again, all right? From the top!"

#

I drifted back to my office, and I shut the door behind me. There was a stack of papers on my desk—reports, briefings, and the like—but I took one look at them and pushed them as far aside as I could.

I think I came to understand Misato a bit more in that moment. What must she have felt the times when I threatened to leave, or when I became trapped in the Eva? The work has to go on, but the bond we shared outside of that—outside of a pilot and his superior—couldn't be dismissed. It was there. It mattered to us. Having it severed was like feeling my own umbilical cord cut.

I didn't know how Misato coped with that in her time (no, cases of Yebisu don't count as coping). All I knew was that I knew nothing. We hadn't even been on a mission for a couple days. The Eva was undergoing repairs. How could this have happened?

To find an answer, I went back through combat footage. I put on my headphones, watched, and listened:

"I'm going to be bean paste here if I don't get an answer!"

That was Nozomi's voice on the footage. I reviewed film from the entry plug and exterior cameras of this battle and others, from when Nozomi used the puncture engine or did not.

The Angels had touched Nozomi's mind. They had always tried to do this, and the puncture engine enabled that effort—at least at one point.

But Nozomi had been examined and cleared. I laid out her brain scans in front of me, but the folds and lobes of her brain told me nothing of what was going on within them.

As I paged through these files, I left entry plug footage playing in the background. Eventually, I came back to the beginning: Nozomi's pilot profile. It showed a photo of a girl without a smile, who was "private and unsociable" and "frank to the point of causing offense," but also "cool under pressure and totally undeterred by adversity."

It amazed me, really: someone on this base had reduced her, along with each of the rest of our pilot candidates, to a few short phrases.

That was how I was meant to get to know them.

That was how I was supposed to learn who they were.

"Okay, yeah," said the voice on the tape. "What am I looking at here?" A pause. "Your 'best guess'?"

That was the Nozomi who existed outside of short dossier: she watched her surroundings with a steady, discerning gaze, and when her handler on the radio put forward a marginal piece of information, she wasn't shy to express her irritation with that.

But there was a Nozomi who existed outside of that video footage, too: the one who gave me my own sketchpad and who taught me how to draw.

That dossier—it was like a photograph of a jigsaw puzzle from a distance. You could glean major features from it, but when the cameraman zoomed in, you'd see that some of the pieces were missing or that others didn't fit the way you thought they did.

I didn't know much more about how to study photographs than I did about art or drawing, so after some time, I paused the cycle of entry plug footage on my workstation, and I piled up all the papers, test results, medical records, and all the rest of that into a neat stack.

I picked up the phone, and I dialed an increasingly familiar number.

"Horaki residence," said a voice.

"It's me," I said. "Have you heard?"

"I have. Is she awake?"

"Not yet, but—would you come down?"

"For Nozomi?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause.

Then, finally, she said,

"I'm on my way."

#

I waited for Horaki at the blast door. By the time she arrived, it was late morning, so traffic on the train was nonexistent. That was hardly unexpected: the train only went between National Square and the mountain, and base personnel typically ate on-site, with only a few venturing back downtown for a change of pace.

In a way, I felt bad for making the base staff open the blast door in the first place. Sure, it may have been a nice break in the monotony of standing watch, but it was still a favor of sorts—for Nozomi, and for me. As much as they may have understood Horaki being there, it was still something _I_ had asked for.

When the blast door opened, Horaki came through, thanked the operator, and fell into step beside me. "Sorry I took so long," she said. "How are you, Ikari?"

"I'm…trying," I said, leading her up the dark, rocky tunnel to the base. "That this happened to Nozomi so suddenly…." I shook my head. "What about you?"

"Well…" Horaki sighed. "Nozomi's in good hands. What else can I do?"

I nodded at that. "It's hard, isn't it? Still, thanks for coming. I think Nozomi would appreciate it."

"Really?" She looked straight, her gaze serious and full of deliberate intent. But, after a moment, her eye caught mine from the side, and she smiled slightly. "Thank you for that," she said. "I'm glad you called me down here. This is a tough time—for all of us, right?"

I put on a smile, laughed slightly, and said nothing more for a time. I walked Horaki up the tunnel to the base, and I swiped us into the civilian and officer quarters. Since Nozomi was still under sedation, we headed for her quarters. In my haste, I'd left the door open—a security oversight that turned out to be convenient. Nozomi had left a mess of broken pencils and discarded sketches, many of them ripped straight from her drawing pad. I hoped Horaki might have some insight into Nozomi's art, enough to make sense of what had happened to her.

"I see she made a mess," Horaki said when we arrived. She sighed and shook her head. "That's very Nozomi."

"It is?" I said.

"Hm, well—it's not that she's messy so much as indifferent, sometimes. She cleans when it suits her."

"And when is that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

I might have been overly optimistic about this idea. As I rummaged through the scattered papers, Horaki took to tidying up Nozomi's suitcase and dresser drawers. Nozomi had left a pile of clothes on top of her suitcase, and Horaki packed them up for the base laundromat.

"Has she been busy?" asked Horaki.

I stared at her, open-mouthed.

"Sorry." Horaki touched two fingers to her temple and shook her head. "I just meant that, even in a normal situation, Nozomi tends to make herself busy."

"Doing what?"

"Drawing, of course." She put a foot down on the top of the suitcase and used her weight to press it flat and zip the bag up. "All day and all night, she's searching for something. She'll go out to the train tracks and try to catch the cars in motion. I don't know how you can draw a train when it's a blur going by, but she tries anyway." Horaki stood the suitcase upright. "She doesn't have as much time for that here, does she?"

I shook my head, and I picked up another two pages of discarded sketches. "No, we spend a lot of time in the simulator—when she's not on missions, that is. We practice a lot."

"And she handles that?"

"She does. She doesn't complain. She just works on getting better."

Horaki wheeled the suitcase to the door. "Strange thing to take pride in."

"I'm not sure pride is the reason."

"Then what?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came to mind, and I shrugged helplessly.

"That's Nozomi," said Horaki, nodding.

So it was. Our jigsaw puzzle had missing pieces, and there was only a chance some of them might have been scattered among the pages left on Nozomi's floor.

We collected the sketches and sketch fragments, and we went through them one sheet at a time, paging through drawings of the Horaki house and surroundings, the tunnel leading to the base, and the Angels Nozomi and I had fought. We pried through Nozomi's inspirations with neither remorse nor hesitation. We scoured everything that had made an impression on her heart.

Such as a movie theater.

"Ikari?" asked Horaki. "What is it?"

The wrinkled wad of paper quivered in my hand, and I grabbed my wrist to steady it. On that crumpled sheet, with pencil lines smeared and blurred, was a sketch of a movie theater. The point of view was from the front, looking to the left down that row. The seats were in a stadium configuration, with each row much higher than the one before it. Nozomi captured it all, right down to the fuzz on the seat cushions.

And just a couple seats away from the virtual camera sat something that looked like Hikari Horaki.

There were few sketches like these, though—each with variations on the scene. In one, for instance, Ayanami appeared to step between them—an intervention without success, I'm sure. In another, the three of them sat before the theater screen and watched Angel battles around the world.

"Is it a dream?" asked Horaki. "I don't remember visiting a theater like that. I don't know why Nozomi—"

"No," I said, putting the stack of sketches on the nightstand. "It's not a dream, and that's not you in it."

"But it looks just like me, doesn't it?"

I took the top sheet and made for the door. "Give me a minute."

"Ah—okay?"

I went out into the hallway and shut the door behind me. I smoothed out that piece of paper on the wall, and there was no mistake: from the size of the screen, to the position of the projector, to the velvet felt on the seats.

And Ayanami, too—she had been there.

"Ayanami," I said to the ceiling, "I need to talk to you."

"Do you?"

And there she was. She appeared behind me, and I spun around to meet her. She stood there, under the white fluorescent lights of the base corridors, but she wasn't really _there_. Her gaze was sharp and penetrating, but I could see through her, too. What stood in front of me was no more than a translucent figure in the shape and colors of Rei Ayanami.

Still, while those penetrating eyes were intimidating, I balled a hand into a fist at my side, and I said to her,

"I do; I need to talk to you." I showed her the sketch of the theater. "And to her."

"That," said Ayanami, her eyes narrowing slightly, "is not something you should want."

"If this is the enemy's doing—"

"And if it is, what would you do? What could you say to stop it?"

"I—"

"Your pilot is asleep," said Ayanami. "Isn't there someone else you should help now?"

"Yes, but—"

"Or is this about helping yourself?"

She froze me with her implacable stare, and I stood paralyzed in front of her, like a newborn chick who couldn't even chirp.

"Ikari?" Nozomi's door opened, and Horaki peeked into the hallway. "What's going on?"

I tensed up. "Uh—you see, Ayanami is…well…"

"Ayanami?" asked Horaki. "What about her?"

I looked back down the hallway. Ayanami was gone.

#

I made my apologies to Horaki for the confusion, and I made arrangements for her to stay in Nozomi's room for the time being—at least while Nozomi was in the infirmary. We caught up with Asuka on the way to lunch—at which Horaki would be our guest. Asuka wasn't in a great mood.

"Way to leave me stuck with that kid, Shinji," she said, wiping some sweat from her brow. "Here I am, trying to teach him how to handle real action, and you're seeing my best friend behind my back, huh?"

My eyes went wide. "It's not like that!"

The girls burst out laughing, though Asuka's was a little wearier than Horaki's. "Relax," said Asuka, but she went serious again. "Still, we're gonna have to hope for the best with that kid."

"I'll take over for the afternoon session," I told her. "I know there are exercises we still need to work on."

Asuka raised an eyebrow. "Not gonna be time for that."

"Why not?"

"Hyuga got word during the session: Angels are headed for Vladivostok. We could be seeing battle as soon as this afternoon."

No sooner than she said that we ran into Sasaki near the officers' mess door. That made it official: he was the pilot, but the way he used his bowl of sandy hair to hide from us, you might not have believed it.

"Sasaki," I said, putting on a reassuring smile, "it's going to be fine."

I caught only one eye of his under his hair, and he gave me just a slight nod before heading inside. Asuka and Horaki followed him in, and I brought up the rear.

#

They sent Sasaki to Vladivostok right after lunch, and he went toward a battle unlike the ones we'd fought before. The Angels had stopped trying to provide cover for the walkers and their kin. Rather than liquefy major cities, the Angels had targeted military installations and major industrial sites.

Vladivostok Island was one of those sites: a major port in the Russian Far East, it was the main route for Japanese exports to get to Russia and Europe beyond. And of course, the Russians gave us something in return: food.

Vladivostok was vital to us, vital enough to send Sasaki in the afternoon and risk leaving him in Russia overnight if need be, and we needed our best chance to win with him. That meant putting a voice in his ear that he was used to—Asuka. She'd trained him in the backup control room while Nozomi and I worked together, and since she'd run him through the morning exercises, it was a no-brainer. Asuka would be his handler for this mission, and I'd sit beside her to cover another shift or offer advice and support.

Until then, we could only watch and wait.

Something I learned quickly on this job was that the new pilots had to deal with situations I'd never encountered. In this war, there was only one Eva under our control, and so there was only one pilot at any given time. Nozomi couldn't rely on her peers for support, and the same was true for Sasaki. They were competition, and none of the others could really understand.

In this war, the enemy wouldn't come to us, either. The new Angels attacked lands surrounding Japan but never came to our doorstep. That meant hours of isolation and waiting.

That wait could be grueling. Somehow, Nozomi managed to sleep on most of those flights, but Sasaki couldn't. He was wide awake all throughout the plane ride. He'd get out of his seat and swim around the entry plug every now and then, but for the most part, he sat ready to go, even knowing there were hours before he might see action.

On occasion, he would talk to us. "What is it like?" he asked us at one point.

Asuka and I looked at each other, both of us shrugging, and she replied, "It's not like anything else. You're one with the beast, right? You feel what it feels. It's beautiful. It's terrifying. It's painful. But, if you do it right, it's also amazing."

Sasaki looked straight ahead, sighing, and said, "That's not likely for me, though."

"Not with that attitude it's not!" said Asuka, scoffing.

Sasaki took one look at the camera, said nothing, and glanced forward again, looking about as cheerful as a monk at a funeral.

I got on the microphone. "Sasaki," I said, putting on a smile, "you've trained for this. You know how this works. You can do it, and we'll be watching over you. Just listen to Asuka and trust in yourself."

"I'll try," he said, still looking ahead.

That was the best I could get out of him.

Once Sasaki arrived over Vladivostok, he landed in a cargo storage area for the port. Two Angels were already destroying the harbor facilities: the Mist Angel's tendrils corroded the port's machinery while a new Angel—a four-legged beast with an eyeless face and wide, downturned jawline-devoured shipping containers like a wolf gorging itself on a carcass.

Russian forces were on the scene to help us out. They planted explosives throughout the maze of shipping containers. From the harbor, a Russian destroyer fired shells into the port, harassing the Angels from afar.

Beyond that, it was up to Sasaki to kill the Angels. He surveyed the landscape—one of narrow walkways between stacks of shipping containers—and asked,

"Okay, what do I do here? What's the plan?"

Asuka and I pored over an overhead view. The Quadruped Angel hid behind a wall of containers, shielded from ship-based fire.

Asuka got on the radio. "Ahead, and then left," she said. "Stop at the corner after that, and we'll blow a placed charge to confuse it."

Unit-14 crept around a wall of containers, but its steps rattled the whole loading area. "Right here?" asked Sasaki. "Is that right?"

"Perfect," said Asuka. "Now just sit right there, and—"

BANG! Metal twisted and tore, and a series of smaller _thud_ s rattled the port.

"What was that?" demanded Sasaki, hands clenched around the controls.

On the overhead view, the Quadruped Angel burst through a wall of containers, ripping through the metal like it was wet paper. A line of destruction trailed from the Angel, pointing straight to Unit-14's position.

"Sasaki," said Asuka, "target's coming to you, on your left."

Sasaki nodded and gulped. "Are you going to blow a charge?"

Asuka looked to Hyuga, who got on his headset in turn. "Liaison, we need our distraction in a different spot."

"Standby, Sasaki," said Asuka. "We're trying to get the Russians to change it now."

BANG! Another wall of containers crumpled. "Yah!" cried Sasaki, and he recoiled in his seat, but he took two deep breaths and steadied himself. "Just, um, let me know when you know, then!"

Asuka took her finger off the transmit switch and glanced at me. "What do you know?" she said with a smile. "He's learning."

I nodded. "You're doing a good job holding him together. Keep doing that. Don't let him have time to be afraid or hesitant."

She gave me a faux salute. "Yes, sir, Commander Ikari, sir!" she said.

"Asuka." Hyuga came over with a folder and a map of the port. He pointed out a position on the map. "Russians are going to blow two charges here," he said, "on our signal."

Asuka nodded, and she got on the radio again. "Okay, Sasaki, we've got some charges ready to go. On my count—ready?"

His eyes went wide. "Uh…"

"Three," said Asuka, "two, distraction blast…"

A dull _thud_ rattled the port, and a puff of smoke rose some distance away from Sasaki's position.

"And go!" cried Asuka.

Sasaki clenched his jaw, and he pushed forward on the controls. Unit-14 drew a pallet rifle and lowered its shoulder. It barreled through the wall of shipping containers and came out firing: it blasted the Quadruped with a volley of pallet rifle rounds. The Angel's AT field held, but the beast turned tail and scampered around a short wall of stacked containers.

"You've got it," said Asuka. "Get your knife, and let's see if we can corner it for the engine."

A prog knife popped out of the Eva's right shoulder pylon, and Unit-14 attached the knife to the pallet rifle's barrel, using it as a makeshift bayonet. Unit-14 pressed forward like a hunter cornering prey. It backed the Quadruped Angel into a short, enclosed space, surrounded by containers on all sides.

But the Quadruped—its skin shifty and shimmering—crouched down and bit through the short wall of containers. It burst through the hole and scampered away.

It had help, too: as Sasaki gave chase, the Mist Angel harassed him. Its corrosive tendrils cut through shipping containers effortlessly, spilling thousands of ball bearings about the port grounds. Sasaki slashed at the Mist's tendrils, but his slices came up with empty air.

I nudged Asuka's arm, and she nodded without looking at me.

"Don't get sidetracked," she said over the radio. "That thing can't hurt you as badly as the other one."

"Okay, okay," said Sasaki, "but—"

"But what?"

"Where did it go?"

Asuka looked back at the second monitor, where the overhead feed was, but the Quadruped Angel was gone. There was a trail of wreckage leading to another wall of containers, but that was all.

"Stand by for engine activation," said Asuka, rising. Her eyes darted across the projector screens and her monitor. Her jaw clenched. "When we have visual on the target," she said, "you're on."

The port grounds rattled; that Angel had to be around somewhere, but for all we knew, it was invisible. The control room didn't like that one bit: it was our job to know everything that was going on at any given time.

"Where's our target?" Hyuga called out, and he went over to the detection controller. "Infrared?"

The rightmost panel on the front screen switched to a grayscale image. From a high-altitude plane, an infrared camera panned over the port from above, with only intermittent cloud cover blocking the view. Still, even that didn't tell us very much: both the Mist Angel and Unit-14 were blinding white glows, and by comparison, each of the metal shipping containers was totally opaque.

But one place did catch my eye: within the wall of containers, there was a hot spot—something far warmer than anything else in the area.

And that hot spot was on its way to Sasaki.

Asuka jammed the transmit button on her headset. "Sasaki, your five o'clock! In the containers!"

Unit-14 turned, and—

Ka-TCHEW! The Quadruped burst through; it chomped on Unit-14's right arm, and the pair tumbled toward water. Containers fell off their stacks and rolled near ships in port, with some of them splashing down mere meters from ships' hulls.

Unit-14 and the Quadruped thrashed about, dodging cargo cranes as they fought. The Quadruped Angel kept Unit-14's right arm firm in its maw, but Sasaki punched and kicked against it in a vain attempt to break free.

'I'm gonna use the engine!" cried Sasaki, cradling his arm next to his chest.

"Do it!" said Asuka.

He reached over with his left hand and flipped the toggle on the right control lever. The Eva tossed its pallet rifle aside, and Sasaki guided Unit-14's left hand into an AT-field-shattering jab!

The punch smashed the Quadruped's face in, sparking a cascade of color throughout the creature's skin. The beast staggered, and it fled down the pier, making for firmer ground.

But Sasaki gave chase. As the creature wove between cargo cranes, Unit-14 barreled through them, wrecking the machinery. Lifting arms snapped and fell to the dock.

"Careful!" cried Asuka. "You're making a mess!"

"It's too fast!" said Sasaki, leaning his body back and forth as the Eva ran. "I can't keep up with it!"

CRUNCH! A crane toppled to the sea, scraping against the side of an oil tanker. Black goo squirted from the gash in the hull, and a small crew of sailors scrambled to the railing to assess the damage.

At that, Misato rose from her station, having been quiet thus far. "Ops," she said, "is that Angel wounded enough that we can leave it be, for now?"

Major Hyuga watched the Quadruped flee on the central projection screen. "It may be," he said. "We'll have to keep an eye on it."

"Do that," said Misato. "For now, I think we have a threat to the harbor that goes beyond Angels. Do you agree?"

"I do."

"Let's take care of it, then."

Hyuga nodded, and he went to Asuka. "Let's get him to help out with the spill," he said. "We'll keep an eye on the Angels from here."

Asuka let out a breath, shaking her head, but she relayed the instructions to Sasaki faithfully. Sasaki helped the tanker's crew contain the growing disaster—the disaster he had caused.

And for my part, I sat there, waiting in case I was needed, under Misato's impassive gaze.

#

Sasaki and Unit-14 stayed on site for the spill cleanup, ensuring the harbor would stay clear and that the Angels could do no more to the city without Unit-14 responding. When the Angels fled for the night, we had Sasaki recalled back to Japan.

Just because the operation was over didn't mean it was forgotten, though. Bright and early the next morning, I got a phone call in my quarters:

"The general would like to see you both at 0800," said the voice on the phone.

Misato's requests are never refused on her base. Asuka and I reported to Misato's office, along with Hyuga. The general's office was a little more hospitable than the last time I'd been there: a photo of us on an aircraft carrier decorated one corner of her desk, and the microwave in the back was gone.

Even so, Misato was armed with a stack of folders for evidence, all leading to one inescapable conclusion: she plopped down a folder with Sasaki's dossier and said,

"This kid is not ready." She looked between the three of us. "Why isn't he ready?"

"His synch ratio, for starters," said Hyuga.

"Out of our control," said Misato, steepling her fingers. "He may never have the _feel_ that Nozomi has, but he should be prepared nonetheless." Her gaze fixed on me. "Why isn't he prepared? He seems about the same as he was when Hyuga and I were training him ourselves."

"I—" I looked aside for a moment. "Look, he's erratic. He doesn't listen consistently. I haven't figured out how to keep him steady yet, but we've been working with him!"

"Have you?" asked Misato, raising an eyebrow. "How was he at exercises yesterday?"

Asuka cleared her throat. "I oversaw most of that."

"You did?"

"I did."

Misato shut a folder. "And where was Shinji for this?"

I sat a little taller in my seat. "I was being short with him; I wasn't in a good state of mind. It wasn't helping him."

"Is that right?" Misato took a long, hard look at me, but after a moment, she sighed and slid the dossier to the edge of her desk. "Well, we're all trying to make the best of this, aren't we? What more do we need to do to get this kid ready?"

On that we were short of ideas. "More training," Hyuga offered, but Misato shook her head.

"We've done the training," she said. "We've been doing it. We can't do more of the same. It needs to be better, smarter."

"He is smart enough," said Asuka. "He doesn't have trouble grasping instructions. He just hesitates sometimes, or he improvises without communicating."

"And in doing so, he ends up spilling half a tanker's worth of oil into Golden Horn Bay." Misato tapped her temple. "That's up here, isn't it?" She looked to Major Hyuga. "Talk to his therapist; figure out what we can do to build his confidence. Maybe dial back his exercises a bit; make sure he can get good, successful repetitions. Then turn up the difficulty."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. I'd like Shinji to stay a moment; Hyuga and Asuka, you're dismissed."

My mouth hung open, but I was in no position to protest. Asuka touched a hand to my shoulder as she left, and I nodded in acknowledgement, and the two of them left us alone.

Misato closed the folder in front of her, and she put on a motherly smile. "So!" she said, her voice going up a few pitches. "A little short with Kazuto, huh—that what you said?"

"Mm," I said, nodding. "Like I said, I wasn't in a great state of mind at the time."

"Is it about Nozomi?"

"Yeah." I sat back, staring at the ceiling. "One day she's fine, and the next—basically out of her mind."

Misato smiled sadly. "That's the cost of Eva."

"And we're doing it again." I rubbed the back of my neck and turned my head left and right, trying to work out a kink that just wouldn't go away. "We did it to Nozomi, and now we're doing it to Sasaki. Where does it end?"

Misato sighed, and she leaned forward, catching my gaze. "We ask a lot of them," she said seriously. "Maybe the only good thing right now is that Kazuto can take some of the load for Nozomi. She doesn't have to suffer all of it, and she doesn't have to suffer alone, either."

"I hope that's worth it," I said.

"Me too." Misato looked downcast for a moment, but she shook the dour mood off with a clap of her hands. "Hey, look on the bright side."

"What bright side is that?"

"At least it's not you and Asuka trying to raise three pilots at the same time?"

I laughed, caught off guard more than anything. "With Asuka—can you imagine?"

Misato smiled, and she reached across the desk to take my hand. "It's good you can laugh," she said. "It means you're still here."

"I'm doing what I can," I said.

"I know." Her gaze turned serious, and her hold on my hand tightened. "But Shinji: you don't have to do too much. Nozomi is in good hands. There are other pilots—other people who can shoulder the burden, and they do need you."

I frowned, and I leaned forward, too, hands folded in each other. "Misato," I said, "This isn't just about pilots. Was I just a pilot to you, back then?"

She smiled to herself, and she shook her head.

"That's why I want to see her get well," I said. "It's important to me."

"I'd like to see that, too, but we do need you here. We need you with Sasaki. Asuka is still learning. You have things to teach both of them. We still have to get through all of this. You understand?"

I nodded. "That's why there are exercises scheduled in an hour."

"Bright and early," said Misato, and she let me go. She leaned back in her chair with a yawn. "Good man. Now, get something to eat, hm?"

I rose, but I left her with one last comment:

"I like this photo," I said, taking the picture frame from the corner of her desk. "Did you have it just lying around somewhere?"

"Oh heavens no," she said, shaking her head in exasperation. "You wouldn't believe what kind of digging it took to find that. Two years out, and everything is still a mess."

"But you found it." I put the photo of us—Asuka, Toji, Kensuke, Kaji, Misato, and me, all on the edge of the aircraft carrier—back on the corner of Misato's desk. "I might like one for myself. It's nice."

Misato smiled at that, and she touched the corner of the picture frame, turning the photo toward her slightly. "I think so, too."

#

After a short breakfast, I headed back toward my office. There was some preparation I wanted to do before training Sasaki that morning. I laid out all of Sasaki's documentation—his personal dossier, reports from his therapist, and even interviews with his teachers in middle school. All of this described a person who was intelligent and capable of piloting an Eva, but he was also timid, moody, and occasionally combative.

Now, you tell me: how do you make that into a good pilot? How do you mold that into something that won't break down under pressure?

I sat staring over the papers for some time, trying to answer that very question, but as I sifted through those reports and records, searching for some nugget of inspiration, the office phone rang.

"Hello, Ikari here."

"It's me."

Horaki.

"I just heard from the infirmary," she said. "Nozomi's awake. Would you—do you want to see her?"

I let the handset drop a little from my ear, and I stared over the mess of papers on my desk. I had a boy's whole life scattered over that desk, staring back at me in black and white type. You'd think that would come with a little understanding. Maybe it did, but that would be like understanding the instructions to building a computer. I might've been able to understand the individual words and phrases, but if I wanted to change the thing—improve upon it, make it better—that was another matter entirely.

"Ikari?" asked the voice on the phone.

"Sorry," I said, "I was just thinking about something."

"Oh, I see. Well, about Nozomi—"

"I'm on my way."

"Okay, see you soon."

I hung up, and I shuffled all the papers on my desk into a single pile.

When the folders and paper edges were aligned, I pulled out another set of papers from the drawer—sketches of the movie theater—and headed out the door.

#

The thing that unsettles me most about hospitals is when a person wakes up.

Waking up in a hospital changes people. It's like a piece of the soul escapes during treatment. Maybe the surgeons cut it out by mistake. Maybe it gets filtered out during dialysis. Either way, people don't wake up the same as they were before. I'd seen it many times: in Ayanami, in Asuka, and in myself. Sitting at someone's bedside, you never know what person is going to wake up.

So, when I saw Nozomi up and drawing in the infirmary, I let myself be relieved. Art and Nozomi were inseparable. If that had changed, I truly wouldn't have known her.

Nozomi was sitting up halfway in her bed and drew on the back of a food tray. Everything else going on around her was mere distraction. I watched her from around the edge of the privacy curtain, but Nozomi caught me peeking.

"Ikari." She didn't even raise her eyes, but somehow, she knew.

Well, there was no point in being sneaky after that. I stepped inside. "You're feeling better."

She shrugged. "Pretty sure if I were feeling worse, I'd be dead, right? So I should hope so."

I gawked at her, but Nozomi cracked a small smile.

"Relax, Ikari," she said, laughing softly to herself. "I still feel like ass, but I'm here. I'm doing better—not perfect, but better."

She wasn't wrong. There was an edge to her efforts to draw: she focused on the back of the lunch tray quite intently, following the drawn lines with her eyes. It was as though the whole sketch might disappear if she looked away from it.

But she was still there, holding on to something in her mind and refusing to let it go.

I glanced through the gap in the curtain, meeting Horaki's gaze, and I gave her a nod. "That's good to hear—that you're feeling better," I said, not looking at Nozomi. "You know, now that you're awake, you have to deal with a parade of visitors. It's one of the perks of being ill."

"A 'perk,' huh?" she quipped.

Horaki came forward, and at the sound of footsteps, Nozomi's pencil stopped moving.

"Who's that?" she asked, peering around me. "Hikari?"

Horaki came up next to me, showing a sheepish smile. "Got it in one," she said. "Can't get something like that past you, can we, Nozomi?"

Nozomi sat up a little straighter, and she put the drawing pencil into the lip of the tray. "Hey," she said. "You got down here fast. I haven't been awake that long."

"I've been here since yesterday," Horaki explained. "Ikari was nice enough to arrange that."

Nozomi's eyes flickered to me. "So this is your doing, huh?"

I shrugged and laughed. "Guilty as charged."

Nozomi didn't laugh. She just looked back at Horaki for a time—a few seconds of abject silence.

"So," she said at last, "how's Kodama?"

"Fine, fine. I talked to her last night. Left some food for her so she wouldn't starve." Horaki laughed. "Things are busy at work. I think that helps her, though."

"If there's nothing you can do, it not so bad to be busy."

"Yes, I think so, too."

Silence again. Nozomi's stare was fixed on her sister—expectant, penetrating. It asked if Horaki were finished or if there were more she had to listen to.

Horaki looked to me, and I nodded again—just once. Horaki closed her right hand into a fist, and she asked,

"How are you feeling, Nozomi?"

"Me?" Nozomi looked to the ceiling idly before refocusing on us. "I'm hanging in there. Bad dreams. Those things get into your head. It's all expected, though. They're gonna give me nice drugs. That should help."

"That's good. You can come home for a few days, if you like—while you're on the mend, at least."

"Maybe. I'll think about it."

Horaki stiffened, but her tone didn't falter. "Whatever you decide, you should take care of yourself, Nozomi. Ikari and General Katsuragi need you in good shape. I'm sure Ikari would be happy to take care of anything you need. Isn't that right, Ikari?"

I nodded. "I'd do my absolute best."

"And if there's something he can't do," Horaki went on, "Sister and I would do our best as well."

Nozomi looked away, studying her sketch. "Yeah, I know that," she said. "Thanks, Hikari. Thank Kodama for me, too."

Horaki nodded, and she leaned to the left. With her weight on one leg, she hovered for a moment. A few more steps would've put her in Nozomi's gaze, but Horaki didn't follow through. She evened out her footing, and she smiled briefly. "Well, I can't stay," Horaki explained, "and I know you have work to do. I'll be back in a day or two to bring some things and visit, though."

Nozomi nodded at that. "Okay."

With that, I escorted Horaki out—past the blue curtain, past the head corpsman's desk and into the off-white hallway, overrun with pipes and valves.

Horaki stopped at the corner and let out a heavy sigh. "What do you think? Was that enough for you?"

She didn't face me, but even so, I nodded—on reflex more than anything. "I think so—maybe," I said.

Horaki glanced over her shoulder at me, and she smiled—for real, this time, though she was no happier for it. "I hope so," she said. "Good luck."

"You're okay getting out on your own?"

"Yes, I'll be fine. Let me know what happens, all right?"

"I will, absolutely."

"Thanks." She started down the corridor, but she called back over her shoulder. "I'll tell Asuka to do you a favor for me!"

 _She'll tell you to do it yourself,_ I thought, but I didn't say it. Sometimes it's better not to question the thanks people would give you, after all.

And besides—Horaki seemed genuinely happy at the idea, at least for the moment.

I let Horaki go, and I turned around to head back into the infirmary. I took the manilla folder out from under my arm, and I paged through the contents one last time. Nozomi's sketches of the theater flashed before my eyes like still frames from an animated film. I flipped through them all once more, and I went back inside.

Nozomi's curtain was still drawn partway, so she caught my footsteps as soon as I was a meter in the door.

"Forget something?" she called out.

I huffed at that, but I didn't answer until I was closer. I made it back to her bedside, and I pulled up a chair from next to the bank of instruments and sensors. I sat down at her side, folder closed in my lap.

"No," I said, "there's just some stuff I didn't get to say."

"Yeah? What about?"

I sighed, and I glanced to the ceiling. The tiles there weren't unique in any way. Perhaps each one was subtly different, sporting distinctive patterns of black speckle, but those patterns didn't matter in any way. One may as well have been the same as any other. At best, you might get used to a particular pattern above you—when you sleep in quarters you call your own, for instance.

I looked to that ceiling, then back to Nozomi, and I opened the folder.

"We went through your room," I said. "We found the drawings."

Nozomi glanced at the stack of drawings, and she turned slightly aside. "You did, did you? So? What about them?"

I showed her the top sheet from the folder: the sketch of the stranger sitting in the front row of the theater, facing back at the page—staring without eyes.

"I've seen this person before," I said.

"Really?" Nozomi faced me again, and she moved over in the bed, coming closer to me. "Who is it?"

"I don't know, but I've seen that person—and the movie theater and Ayanami. I see her in my dreams whenever she wishes to speak to me. This?" I held up the sheet in front of her. "This is not something that just came up in your mind. This is something she brought you to. This is something she put inside you. It's not a coincidence."

Nozomi took the sketch in hand, studying it up and down. "So this is just what I've gotta deal with, huh?" She handed the sheet back to me and closed her eyes, as if ready to sleep. "That's not so bad, then. If something wants to keep me up with nightmares, at least I know they're not really mine."

"It rattled you, didn't it?"

"I'm here, right?" She shrugged, even with her eyes closed. "Pretty silly of me to get spooked by something that wasn't real, though. Just gotta learn to deal."

"And what was it that spooked you?"

She opened one eye. "Don't worry about it, Ikari. That thing tried to rattle me. I won't let it. It's fine. Whatever that thing was, it has no power over me."

"Even when she looks like this?" I took out the second sketch, with Horaki in place of the stranger.

Nozomi shut her eyes tight, and she turned her body away. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That person—that thing—came to me looking like my father once. We were in battle, and she stood in front of my station and talked the way my father would. She used his face and his voice. She said things that I…couldn't handle. That time we dropped a rod on you—you remember that?"

She nodded slightly, even as she faced the bank of sensors and monitors.

"And do you remember," I said, my voice quivering, "that I didn't come back to the base for a while—that someone had to come knocking on my door to get me to face up to what I was afraid of and do the job right?"

Nozomi sighed and turned back around to face me. "Ikari—"

"Nozomi," I butted in, "I've seen how you are with Horaki. There's a wall between you still—a line neither of you will cross. You say it has nothing to do with what happened before, but if so, then what is it? I don't understand; I really don't. And then I see her in your sketches, the way that _thing_ appeared to me like my father, and—"

I shuddered. I wiped my face clean, along with the surface of the folder. You can't get those things wet; they just warp and never recover.

"Ikari, come on." She reached out from under the sheets and caught my wrist, steadying me. "It's not like that. You don't need to get involved in this."

"But I do." I smiled and dabbed the last tear away with my collar. "I don't know much about things, but I've been a pilot. I didn't care for it, but I know you do—for some reason. And if you care about being a pilot, I can't let this be. If what's between you and your sister can get in the way, I _shouldn't_ let it be because I've been there, and it destroyed me." I held back another sob, and I ran my fingers through my hair, shaking my head. "It destroyed half the world, Nozomi. I don't want to see that happen again."

"Ikari…" She let go of my wrist and shook her head, staring at the ceiling. She laughed bitterly. "We're not the same," she said at last. "We're really not. You were a pilot once, and I am now, but we're not the same."

"Why not?"

"With you and your father, you tried to live up to what you thought he wanted, right? You tried to be someone he could love, right? You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do anything wrong to him, did you?"

I leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. "What—what are you saying?"

She met my gaze then, and there was something…different about her in that moment. There was usually something very casual about Nozomi: something indifferent, even flippant, sometimes. Perhaps the only time I'd seen her emotional—before this whole thing, anyway—was when she'd come to my penthouse and given me a talking-to. Even then, her anger carried more than a tinge of disbelief and disappointment, but she never let that get to her in a _personal_ way—in a way that showed real hurt or pain.

But as she looked back at me from her hospital bed, I saw something quite different in her. I saw something more like the manic, disoriented girl who'd drawn over everything in her quarters. Those two big, dark eyes of hers had a little more shine to them than I'd come to expect, and she said,

"Ikari, what kind of person do you think I am?"

"You are—you are…" I fumbled for words. "You're…far braver than I ever could be. That much I know."

She scoffed, shaking her head. "You think I'm brave?"

"You don't even batt an eye doing it," I said, gaping. "You—"

"Come on. You of all people should understand."

"Understand what?"

She stared at the ceiling—her expression blank, as though someone had taken all the emotion inside her and crushed it in a black hole.

"It's not bravery if you don't really care what happens to you," she said.

I sat there, with the folder quivering in my hands and my mouth open. Nozomi's pulse—as the EKG machine announced it with rhythmic beeps—was totally steady. How different it would've sounded if it had been hooked up to me.

I got up from the cold metal chair, and I walked out. I went out straight away, and I made for the nearest washroom. I put the folder on top of a hand dryer, but it was unstable and fell over, scattering the sketches on the tile floor. I didn't bother to pick them up.

I just looked in the mirror. I looked at my face—a face that was looking more and more, every day, like my father's.

I ran the sink for cold water, and I splashed some over my face. Anything to wash that sight away. Anything to wash those feelings away.

"You're wasting time here."

The only thing cooler than that water was the steady voice of Rei Ayanami.

She appeared before me in the mirror, with her red eyes sharp and focused—squarely on me.

"You should be working with someone who can pilot right now," she said.

"And just leave her behind?" I scoffed. "No way."

"Who are you trying to help?"

"Her, me, everyone!" I beat my fist on my chest. "We all need help!"

"You can't do that," said Ayanami. "That's not something anyone can do. You have to choose. What is most important to you?"

I buried my face in my hands, hiding in the last droplets of cold water. "Lots of things are important to me, Ayanami. 'Responsibility is a fire that burns inside the heart,' isn't it?" My head snapped upright. I glared at her in the mirror. "What is it you want me to do? How am I supposed to do all this? Tell me!"

Ayanami hesitated before answering. "You—you and General Katsuragi—were destroying all the bonds you had with other people to see this through. I won't ask you to do that, but no one will be left if you fail, Ikari."

"I understand that, but—" I hissed, and I pulled on my hair. "I don't know how to do this."

"I've felt that way before." She took a step closer in the mirror. If she were really there, she would've been just behind me. "I could show you."

"Show me what?" I demanded.

"Go outside," she said, smiling a little. "I'll be waiting for you."

I wiped my face clean, and I stepped over the scattered sketches, making for the door. I turned the handle, and I stepped into a corridor—a corridor far different from Manoah Base, for the ceilings boasted two continuous strips of fluorescent lights, and the hallway itself seemed to be made of interchangeable, rectangular sections.

"Samael."

It was Ayanami's voice, but it was not Ayanami. This person wore a white lacboat—as did the others who followed her, who walked past me: Kaworu, Asuka, Nozomi, Toji, and Horaki.

The seven of us stood in a hallway of Nerv Headquarters.

"Samael," Ayanami said again, "are you coming?"

I swallowed and nodded, and I let Lilith lead the way.

#

Throughout the story I've told so far, I've talked about _Ayanami_ even though that name is a fiction. She was a person created from salvaged DNA and a borrowed soul. Few other people bothered using that name. To everyone else in the world, she was _Lilith_.

I didn't know Lilith, though. How much _that person_ who appeared to me was Lilith versus Ayanami I couldn't know. Even the ghost who appeared to me was different from the woman in the past—the one in the false vision Ayanami showed me. In the past, she was idealistic, full of drive and compassion. The ghost I'd come to know wasn't so loud about her intentions. If the past version of her was a bright and boisterous flame, the ghost in the present was more of a steady ember.

I didn't know what Ayanami meant to show me with this second vision of the past, but whatever she intended, there was something else I wanted to learn, too. Lilith wasn't the only person there, after all. I was in the company of Adam, too, and the others—the ones who looked at me with the faces of Asuka, Toji, Nozomi, and Horaki, as well as "Samael," whose role I played in this fantasy. The seven of us formed the core of the plot to save their people.

The seven of us walked down one of the corridors in "Nerv Headquarters." The halls were lit by only red emergency lighting. Our footsteps and chatter between us were the only sounds that could be heard.

"Samael." The one with Horaki's face called to me, and I hesitated when she fell into step beside me. She had the gentle look of Horaki—when Horaki could be kind instead of demanding, at least. It wasn't a look that fit her. Someone like her shouldn't have looked so kind.

"What's the matter?" she said, frowning. "Did I startle you?"

I looked ahead and stared steadfastly at the end of the hallway. "No, sorry. Just have some things on my mind."

"I thought so," said the thing with Horaki's face. "You've been very quiet lately. Anything specific?"

"Ah, no," I said, laughing nervously. "I guess it's just the totality of it all—everything we're doing. It's a lot to think about."

"It is, isn't it." The thing with Horaki's face looked forward with a distant stare. "Perhaps I should cross you off the list of people I'm worried about, then."

"Why's that?"

She jerked her head forward, where Kaworu was talking with an animated Asuka and Toji. "So you put in a failsafe," Asuka said confidently, "just in case there's any navigational error. That shouldn't be difficult."

Horaki didn't like what she was hearing with that. She shook her head, saying to me, "I'd rather not assume anything is simple at this stage."

"Do you—do you think something might go wrong?" I asked.

"Not in so many words. But it'll be a real pity if we go through all this…" She opened her arms, gesturing to the facility around us. "If we go through all this and accomplish nothing, then what's the point?"

Yeah, what was the point? Why would she want to go through all of this just to see it dismantled and destroyed?

"That's why you have a list?" I asked. "Trying to make sure nothing's wrong before we commit to the plan?"

"That's right, and if you're just trying to weigh the enormity of all this, that's fine." She nodded ahead. "I think someone's got a bit more on her mind than that, though."

Ayanami walked in the middle of the pack, between us and Kaworu's group. She was isolated despite being at the center of us.

"Why's that?" I asked.

Horaki looked at me quizzically. "Because of the contact experiment?"

Up ahead, I saw an elevator with a grated door. There was only one such elevator in all of Nerv Headquarters—-only one elevator that went all the way to the very bowels of the facility: the one that led to Terminal Dogma.

"Oh, of course!" I said, slapping the side of my head. "Of course."

Horaki eyed me from the side, but she said nothing more. Her concern and confusion were unsettling. It was strange to be in the position of knowing something she didn't.

The seven of us filed into the elevator with the grated door. The others—Nozomi and Toji, mainly—kept talking throughout, mostly about extracting the souls of their people for the plan. Nozomi felt it had to be done en masse. "Give no one any chance to complain"—that was the way she put it.

But I didn't pay them too much mind, for the scene around us was far more distracting. As we descended, the bowels of the Geofront raced past—innumerable levels and layers of machinery, of discarded rock and flesh.

That was the worst part: the flesh. In some levels of the Geofront, there was material that had once lived—or that was still alive in some way. We felt waves of humidity as we passed those levels, and the walls themselves radiated warmth.

After a few levels of that, I decided not to look outside; I watched Ayanami instead. While the others talked and discussed their plans, Ayanami was silent. She stared outside, as stoic as ever. She stood at the front-left corner of the elevator, where she didn't have to meet anyone's gaze. She stayed that way even once we reached bottom.

The end of the shaft led to cavernous structure. There was a lake of LCL on one side of the chamber, and a few in the group went to the fluid's edge to take samples, but Ayanami went off by herself. She approached a red cross, on which a white creature hung. The beast had rolling, blubbery flesh, and it wore a purple mask over its face. The mask had holes for seven lifeless eyes. Ayanami craned her neck, looking upward at the creature—which did not move, nor did it acknowledge her in any way. It stared lazily across the cavern, and each eye blinked independently of the others.

"All right, then." Kaworu clapped his hands and rubbed them together, and the sound echoed through the cavern. "Let's get started, shall we?"

With that, the others went to work. There was a small control room built into the wall of the cavern, and Nozomi and Toji headed there, sitting down to watch some monitors. Kaworu and Asuka lugged out boxes of cables and other devices, and the two of them attached sensors to the creature's body. Horaki worked on some cameras, setting up tripods at various positions and distances. I did my best to pretend to be useful, carrying tripods out to where Horaki told me, but it was difficult to play the role: at one point, Horaki just looked at me and said, "We just went over this last night. Ten, twenty, and forty meters, right?"

I smiled and nodded, saying I was a little distracted. That wasn't all wrong, either, for once we started on the second set of cameras, Ayanami closed her eyes, bowed her head, and walked away from the giant.

"Lilith?" Horaki spotted it, too. "Where are you going?" she called out.

"Around," said Ayanami. "You guys need some more time, right?"

"Maybe twenty minutes," said Kaworu, who attached another sensor pad to the giant from atop a ladder. "Check back in then, all right?"

Ayanami waved a hand in acknowledgement, but she said nothing more and kept walking.

I set up another tripod, but I fumbled with putting out the legs. I wasn't looking at the floor. I was watching Ayanami's every step.

"Samael." That was the thing with Horaki's face again. "What do you think about that?" The eyes that looked like Horaki's followed Ayanami as well.

"I think," I said after a time, "I'm not sure if she should be alone right now."

Looking stone-faced, Horaki said, "No. Let's go."

"Go?"

At that, Horaki flashed a coy smile. "You're not helping me much here, are you?"

I laughed nervously, and I bowed my head in understanding. Horaki led the way, and we followed in Ayanami's tracks.

Ayanami had headed down a series of tunnels. These passages were hexagonal in shape, and their intersections were unusual—three-way junctions at 120-degree angles.

These were the guts of the Geofront. The whole area hummed with the sounds of machinery—fans, pumps, and the like. Despite all that noise, Ayanami's footsteps echoed. Her strides were steady and even, and thanks to that, we were able to keep up with her.

Horaki and I dared not exchange words. She pressed a finger to her lips at one point—what a childish gesture; did she think she could fool me?—but our footsteps could still be heard. If Ayanami recognized we were following her, she didn't seem to care. As long as Horaki and I didn't say a word, we could all pretend Ayanami was alone, with only the echoes of footsteps to accompany her. Perhaps the illusion of being alone was all she wanted.

That illusion couldn't hold forever. Ayanami's trail came to a halt as she reached a dead end. Horaki and I followed her to an airlock. Horaki slid open a control panel, and she navigated a computer-controlled input system with one hand. After a few touches, the door opened, leading to another chamber with more controls, as well as a series of symbols I didn't understand—dots and lines that gave an impression of writing or numbers, but they were gibberish to me.

The door behind us shut, and Horaki started working the controls within the chamber, opening the second door, which lead to a void. Ayanami was there—-half in light, half in shadow. The light shined on from the outside, showing a rough, irregular rock face with some glittering specks in the stone. Ayanami sat at the airlock's edge, with her legs dangling off the side. She looked over her shoulder at us.

"You want to sit?" she asked.

Horaki scoffed, even as she sat down next to Ayanami. "You're playing with your life here," she said. "but I take it you've been here before?"

Ayanami nodded. "I've come down here a few times," she explained. "There's not that much difference between what we've built here and the rock face outside—just a meter or two, right? Just this strut separates them."

Ayanami tapped her foot on a thick metallic shaft that extended from below the airlock door to the rock face, ending in a triangular pad.

"And yet," she went on, "we designed this thing to last billions and billions of years. Even when the world is gone, what we've built here will still exist. Amazing, isn't it?" She glanced over her shoulder again. "Don't you think so, Samael?"

"Amazing," I said, standing behind her and Horaki. "Amazing and a little frightening."

"Frightening, yes." Ayanami kicked her feet back and forth. "It's more than a little frightening. I'm glad someone else sees it that way."

"We all know this is a tremendous responsibility," said Horaki, who leaned forward to catch Ayanami's eye. "It's bound to be frightening."

Ayanami laughed. "Agrat doesn't think so. Never mind Adam. I think he _likes_ that part of this." She frowned. "I heard the two of them talking about a microwave background experiment that required fifteen billion years to carry out. They talk about it like it's nothing."

"This is a big deal," said Horaki.

"A huge deal," said Ayanami.

"A gigantic deal."

"An enormous deal."

"A gargantuan deal."

Horaki and Ayanami stopped, and they looked at each other. Ayanami burst out laughing. " 'Gargantuan'? Really?"

Horaki scowled in mock anger. How bizarre. They were treating each other like dear friends. Why on earth?

And yet, to Ayanami, that sentiment was real enough. Her expression was something I had seldom seen from her. She was awash with laughter, but her gaze was still distant and yearning, desperate for relief.

Ayanami wiped her eye, and Horaki took her hand.

"Do you want to go through with this?" asked Horaki.

"What?" Ayanami blinked. "What do you mean?"

"It's a lot to ask of anyone," said Horaki. "Why put yourself through that? The six of us could handle it." Horaki looked to me. "We're up for it, right, Samael?"

"If, uh…" I pulled on my collar. "If Lilith wants to stay behind, I'm sure we could make it work."

I climbed down and sat between the girls. I kicked my legs in the cavernous void beneath us and frowned. As much as I'd been unnerved by this thing with Horaki's face, no doubt Ayanami—the Ayanami I knew, back in my place and my time—had something else in mind for me to consider.

I leaned forward, catching Ayanami's gaze. "It has to be something you _want_ to do, right?"

"That's true." Ayanami rose. She held on to the edge of the doorway, and she stepped out, into the dark.

"Lilith!" cried Horaki.

"Relax." She took two steps onto the support strut and shot us a disapproving look. "I'm fine."

Even so, I peered around her to watch her footing, but she stepped confidently across a metal strut—a beam that stuck out from the Geofront's surface into the surrounding rock. She walked the beam with the ease and skill of a gymnast. With one foot in front of the other, she stopped at the end of the strut, and she felt the rough face of the rock outside.

"Have you ever touched the ground and just felt it, Eisheth? Samael?" she asked.

Eisheth. Yes, that's right. That was her name. She'd said it before, at the presentation. Her name was _Eisheth_.

The thing with Horaki's face—Eisheth—looked like she was going to have a heart attack. Wincing, I said,"I don't think so, no."

"The earth has a heartbeat," said Ayanami. "It pulses because stuff flows inside of it: liquid rock circulates through the mantle, bringing heat from the core. That sustains volcanoes and fuels the magnetic field."

"Even that would slow and stop with time," said Horaki, rising to her feet. "Now get back here!"

Ayanami waved a hand at her like a headstrong child. "It might," she said,"but until then, you can still feel it. You can feel the warmth in the ground. It's still alive, in a way. We're all alive. We're connected that way."

"Connected?" I said.

"Yes, connected: bound together by what keeps us going, by what keeps us alive." She smiled at that, and she rubbed her fingers on the rock face. "I have no doubts about what I'm doing here. I know it's scary; I know it's frightening, but we're all going through it together, and we won't be alone, will we?"

I opened my mouth. My head titled, and I shot her a quizzical look. Horaki had a more composed answer:

"No," said Horaki. "Not alone. Even if it takes us a little while to meet again, we will not be alone. We're doing this together."

Ayanami nodded at that, smiling, but her expression turned pained again as she rubbed a hand on the rock face. "Still," she said, "I'm going to miss stuff like this. Something like the earth's heartbeat—we're not going to get to feel it again with our own skin."

"But you will feel it again." Horaki reached a hand over the gap, offering to pull Ayanami back onto the main structure. "Even if it's never the same, or if it takes a billion billion years, we'll make sure of that."

Ayanami took Horaki's hand, and she climbed back onto the Geofront's main structure.

"Yeah," she said. "I know we will."

You see, even though she had doubts, Ayanami had a great deal of conviction for what they were doing—more than I would've had, at least. She trusted in them—all of them—that it would turn out well in the end, and that they would do it together.

How sad it was, then, that she and the others were betrayed.

When Ayanami was finished, we headed back to the main chamber. By that point, the others were ready for the experiment. Horaki and I joined them in the observation room, watching from the giant's left. Ayanami, in turn, removed her clothes and stood before the giant. Dwarfed as she was by that thing, she faced it down steadily and didn't tremble in the least.

"Lilith." Kaworu spoke through a microphone, and his voice resonated throughout the room. "You may proceed when ready."

She took a breath, and she stepped forward. She approached the giant's leg, and she turned around, putting her body to it back-first.

And when she touched it, the giant's skin pulled at her. It pulled her a centimeter off the ground, and her body sank within it like a coin in a fountain.

She shut her eyes tight, and the giant's white flesh enveloped her whole.

The other's among the seven were as enthralled with the scene as I was. Kaworu had to remind the others to monitor their consoles for data: "What's the electrical activity like?" he asked of Nozomi. "The thermal profile?"

But after a time, the readings on those consoles steadied. The giant was intact and alive. The others looked among each other and decided: so far, so good.

Kaworu got on the microphone. "Lilith," he said, "can you hear me?"

The giant's head turned, facing us, and its seven eyes—each blinking independently of the others—came to focus.

 _Yes, Adam. I'm here._

#

I woke up back in the base, underneath the exposed pipes that ran along the ceiling and harsh fluorescent lights. I opened my hand in front of me and wiggled my fingers. The base was a very different place from that version of Nerv Headquarters; for starters, it was alive with running water and circulating air. People passed by with idle chatter and the like. The installation I had seen was more of an empty shell, where even isolated sounds stood out like they didn't belong.

"She believed in it."

That was Ayanami. She stood beside me, in front of the washroom door, and she stared down the hallway, not meeting my gaze.

"She believed in it with all her heart," said Ayanami. "Don't you agree?"

"She did, and she was betrayed." I followed Ayanami's gaze, but the hallway just went on down before turning a corner. There was nothing there to look forward to. "Wasn't she?" I asked.

She said nothing.

"Ayanami, listen—"

I tried to touch her shoulder, but my fingers went through her like putting a hand in front of a movie projector.

Ayanami looked away. "It would be dangerous if I could touch you. She would be able to touch you as well. That's something I've given up."

I wiggled my fingers, and I balled my hand into a fist at my side. "You've given up a lot," I said.

She nodded. "Some of that can never be recovered, but if we win—if she relents…" She brought a finger back through my hand, and she rested her arm at her side. "…maybe then."

"I am still here, right now," I said. "We're all here for you."

"You are here," she said, smiling a little, but that smile was short-lived. "You're here—for now."

"Ayanami—"

"You're in danger, Ikari," she said, eyes hard and focused. "You're all in danger. I asked General Katsuragi for her help. If you're not here for that, then what are you here for? Who are you here for?"

Her red eyes bored into me like lasers.

"I need a part of you to believe in it. If there's something you could do and you leave it undone, then you betray me a little bit, too."

Try as I might to speak, no words came from my throat. I shut my eyes tightly, and I clawed at the top of my head, as though I could pull some explanation from my brain with nothing more than my bare hands.

I sighed, shook my head, and mustered only, "Ayanami, it's not like that; I—"

I looked up, and she was gone.

Ayanami left me there, with the sounds of water flowing through pipes and air through ductwork—in a machine that was alive, but with no other soul around to share that feeling with me.

#

After speaking with Ayanami, I headed back to my office. The morning schedule was busy, with more training for Sasaki on deck.

I went over the agenda of exercises—three different scenarios for fighting Angels in locations all around Asia, but it was all the same. None of it really changes between one situation to the next. Three Angels, coastline environment? Check. Two Angels, mountain environment? Check. All the same. Pointless details that don't mean anything.

I shut the folder, tucked it under my arm, and went out the door. I headed downstairs and across the base.

To the pilot locker room.

"Sasaki?" I pushed the door open, greeted by rows of lockers in metallic gray. "Are you in here?"

"Yes, sorry," a voice called back. "I'll be down in just a minute!"

"No, that's fine. There's something I wanted to talk about before we got started." I came around the corner, and there was Sasaki:

In white underwear with his plugsuit hanging from the locker door.

"Uh…" He turned redder than a tomato. "Do you mind?"

"Why?" I asked. "There's no modesty when you pilot Eva. Everything you have is laid bare. Get dressed."

Sasaki gawked at me, and after a moment, he sighed and turned around as he continued getting dressed. "What is it, Ikari?"

"I wanted to ask you," I began, "what are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to get dressed, but there's this guy staring at me…"

"That's not what I meant."

"Yeah, I know." He started putting his legs into the suit. "I guess I don't know what you mean," he went on. "Your people asked me to do this. You came to my family and said I could be a pilot. After that…" He sighed, and he looked into the mirror on the locker door, meeting my gaze in the reflection. "It's been over a year now. I don't think about it a lot anymore."

"But let's say you could quit, right now," I said, leaning forward, "what then?"

"Who would do that?" He stared at me over his shoulder. "I'm the next one up; I couldn't do that."

"We can move on—right here, right now, if you tell me this is something you don't want to do."

The boy hung his head, even as he continued to put the suit on. "It's not like this is something I want to do," he said, "but somebody has to do it, and I've been trained to do it, so…shouldn't I?"

"For what?" I stepped forward. "To save the world?"

"Of course."

"You want to save the world? That's why you're here?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

"No! No no." I laughed. "Most people don't, and neither do you. If you wanted to save the world, you wouldn't be so tentative and erratic in that chair, Sasaki."

"I'm trying; I—"

"I don't need you to try," I said, standing just a step behind him. "I need you to believe in something. I need you to feel that conviction and have it fuel you. Who do you want to save—your family?"

"Yes, of course."

"Prove it to me."

His brow furrowed, and he gawked at me. "Prove? How?"

"Say it."

"I want to save my family?"

"Louder."

"I want to save my family!" he cried, eyes wide, looking back at me in the mirror.

"Do you believe it?" I took a step even closer, looking right over his shoulder. "Do you really?"

"Ikari…" He shook his head, shying away from me. "I don't—"

"I need you to believe it," I said, watching him. "If you don't believe it, if you don't feel it in your heart, you're going to suffer!" I banged my fist on the adjacent locker, and Sasaki shuddered, but I went on. "Do you understand? You're going to suffer piloting Eva, and none of it will mean anything if you don't want to do it. So, you tell me you want to do it. You tell me you want to endure this."

"I do, Ikari!" He turned around, facing me with the plugsuit hanging at his ankles. His eyes hardened, and he went on. "I want to do this—for my family, for the world. I really do."

I took him by the shoulder, shook him, and smiled. "Good," I said. "Now get dressed."

"We're going training?" he asked.

"Yes. We're going to train you right this time. We're going to train you like we've never trained anyone before."

#

Sasaki and I spent most of the next two days training, and we developed a much better rapport. We were united in a manner of thinking and acting that Nozomi and I had never experienced. We had a common purpose and a shared ideal.

I understand people might find that statement unconvincing. Let me tell you about just one example of us working together, working as one.

It was near noon, two days after Sasaki's shaky performance in Russia. After spending most of the morning on scenarios with two Angels to fight, Major Hyuga and I decided to shake things up a bit.

"Okay, Sasaki," I said, standing at my station in the control room, "we're going to add a third Angel here."

The boy on the screen pulled at his plugsuit's collar and sighed. "Ikari, do you think that's realistic? What chance do I really have against three Angels at once?"

"A better chance if you practice than if you don't," I said, and I tapped a pen on the edge of my monitor to stress the point. "Now, who decided you should be here?"

He gulped and composed himself. "I did."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"As long as I choose to be here, I'll give everything I've got."

"Good boy," I said. "Now, here's your situation: three Angels are attacking a desert airfield. Do what you can to protect the aircraft on the runway. Deter or kill the Angels as needed. Got it?"

"And the enemy?"

"The two you've been fighting and the disc-shaped Angel from Africa."

He nodded at that and took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm ready."

I nodded in turn to Hyuga. "We're ready."

"Good," said Hyuga. "Let's begin."

The simulation coalesced; digital wireframes aligned themselves into hangars and control towers. The color of the earth grew out of the wireframe landscape like boils—brown and sandy. Though mountains loomed in the distance, there was nowhere to hide in this place: Angel or Eva, you could be seen for kilometers all around.

The Mist Angel swarmed in the sky, teeming and alive like a cloud of bees. The Quadruped rampaged through the base, smashing buildings with its feet and chomping down on aircraft like they were toys for a dog. The Disc Angel from Africa rolled over the landscape. A yellow, swirling froth of energy, it was bound together by unseen walls, and it shattered runways underneath its weight.

Unit-14 approached the base with nothing but flat land behind it, and the Angels took notice. The Disc turned about, and it raced toward Unit-14. The spinning creature kicked up sand and dirt in a V-shaped wake.

Major Hyuga gave the first order. "Don't give it time to react," he said. "Outmaneuver it."

Sasaki was a better pilot by that point. He'd learned to be confident as well as to listen. I relayed the major's instructions, and Sasaki did what he was told. He was a very good boy.

Unit-14 charged the Disc. The lumbering bear lurched forward with its two rows of eyes and its perpetual, sinister grin, as though it relished the chance for battle and bloodshed, but Sasaki kept cool. He ran the Eva straight at the Angel, planted the Eva's left foot in the dirt, and jumped away. The Angel sped past, and Unit-14 rolled to its feet and dashed onward to the base.

He was desperately needed there. The Quadruped tore through a hangar, warping and twisting the metal roof as though it were thin plastic wrap. Unit-14 turned to meet the Quadruped, but the Mist Angel intervened. It formed a corrosive curtain, blocking one whole side of the base from the Eva.

"It's all right," I said in the microphone. "Try to cut a gap and barge through it."

Unit-14 drew its prog knife, and it cut a gash in the curtain. The gap was narrow, and the Angel's corrosion ate at the Eva on both sides, but the Eva's AT field held, and Sasaki broke through.

But what he broke through to wasn't a safe place at all.

"Watch out!" I cried.

The Quadruped tackled Unit-14; it chomped on the Eva's torso, and its maw put pressure on the Eva's AT field and abdominal armor plates underneath.

"Urk!" grunted Sasaki. "Ikari—Ikari, what can I do here?"

The Eva writhed and punched helplessly at the Angel, but the Quadruped's jaw held on. The Angel thrashed about, slamming the Eva into the ground like a dog with a child's doll.

I looked to Hyuga, who watched with narrowed eyes. "Can't activate the engine," he said. "He'd be crushed. Just let it play."

I took a breath, planting a hand on my desk, and I said, "Okay, Sasaki, just ride it out. It can't hold on to you forever."

He cast a surprised look at the camera. "I'm supposed to just let it keep eating me?"

"It can't eat you," I said, "if you're stronger than it is. You're here, and you're in control. Remind me: what do you need to do?"

"Give everything I've got."

"Can you say that again?"

"Give everything I've got!"

"Give everything you've got," I said, pumping a fist for the camera, "and it can't beat you. If your soul is stronger than that thing's, it can't beat you."

So Sasaki held fast. He took the punishment the Angel dished out. The simulation shot pain into his stomach from the maw's pressure, and the beast beat Unit-14's legs into the ground.

But try as it might, the Quadruped couldn't break through the Eva's AT field. It clenched its jaw and pressed down, but the barrier held in place, spraying the light of the soul through the desert. The light cast long shadows from the hangars and blinded the virtual camera.

The Angel gave up, and it spat Unit-14 out. The Eva tumbled over a runway, and it landed half-draped over a heading sign.

"Now, get up!" I said, pounding my fist on the table.

Unit-14 rose, wobbling on its feet. Sasaki squeezed the controls tightly, and he asked, "Can we go for the kill?"

It was more of a statement than anything. I don't know if he would've relented if I'd said no.

"Take it out," I said, grinning.

Unit-14 charged. It lead with the prog knife as though holding a spear, and the Angel, growling and chomping at the bit, answered in kind: it leapt into action, kicking up dust as it ran. It came at the Eva with an open, frothing maw.

"Okay, engine activate!" I cried.

Sasaki pushed the switch on the activation lever, and Unit-14 left its feet. The AT fields collided in a shower of light and then reconnected with a snapping sound: TSCH!

And Unit-14 barreled through the maw of the Angel, coming out knife-first through the Angel's back.

"Good job!" I said, grinning. "Now, next target!"

The next target was the Disc Angel, which had circled around and was bearing back on Sasaki's position. He turned the knife over in the Eva's right hand, so that it pointed downward or to the outside of his body. As the golden disc blazed toward Sasaki, Unit-14 ran and picked up speed as well. Sasaki raised the Eva's arm to stab in a side-to-side, left-to-right motion, and—-

The scene froze. The Angels turned to wireframes, and the environment vanished.

"What?" cried Sasaki.

"That's time." Hyuga tapped on his watch. "Get something to eat, gentlemen. And your break needs to be one full hour this time, not fifty-nine minutes in a pinch. Those are the regs."

I looked up at the clock: ten seconds past noon. I sighed, and I got on the headset. "Good work still, Sasaki. We'll work on the rest of that scenario after lunch."

"Got it. See you at mess." He shot me a confident smile, and I returned the gesture. The boy really was coming into his own.

I started packing up my things, but Hyuga was already ahead of me, and I had some business with him, so I hurried to get the folder of exercises under my arm. "Ah, Hyuga!"

He stopped in the control room doorway, and I ran up to him. "Yes? What is it?" he asked.

"I was wondering, about the afternoon session—"

He frowned. "Do you need the full time again?"

"Yes, I think we do," I said, "but that's not what I wanted to ask about."

"No?"

"No, I was wondering what we have in terms of four-Angel scenarios."

He rubbed his brow and shook his head. "Shinji, there aren't four Angels in this hemisphere. I'm not sure that's something we should spend a great deal of time on. You've got the three-Angel scenarios. Those could take all day today, and tomorrow."

"Yes, I understand," I said, "but still—if an Angel from the Americas were to come here, I'd like to work on it." I took out a folder and started flipping through it, showing him the papers inside. "I have some ideas about it, actually."

"For tomorrow?" he asked.

"Or the next day?"

Hyuga looked at me with an intense, inscrutable expression. He looked between me and then Sasaki on the projector screen. Watching Sasaki, he said,

"I'll look into it."

I thanked him for that, and I told him I'd see him at lunch once I'd put my materials away. He seemed to understand, though I think he wasn't listening very carefully.

#

What I was building with Sasaki wasn't something everyone else understood. Hyuga definitely didn't understand it, and he wasn't the only one. I heard from another of those people when I got back to my office: as I put down my folder and locked up my drawers to go to lunch, I noticed a few missed calls on my office phone—from Horaki.

I sighed and shook my head, but I picked up the phone. There's nothing to be gained by avoiding someone, so I called her.

"Horaki residence," she answered.

"Hi, Horaki; you were looking for me?"

"Ah, Ikari, yes. Do you have a minute?"

"Only one, maybe two. It's lunchtime, and I don't want to lose my place." I leaned on one foot as I stood by the phone. "What's going on?"

"It's about Nozomi: I'm told they're releasing her today, and they're going to let her go home to recuperate. I want to do what I can to help her here; I was wondering if she told you anything else."

I scratched the back of my head and sighed. "I'm sorry, Horaki, but I haven't spoken to her since just after you left."

"Not at all?"

"No, sorry. I've been very busy trying to get Sasaki up to speed. He was way behind; he's better now. Hopefully I'll have more time later."

"How much later is that supposed to be? It's been three days."

"Sasaki's progress has to be my priority right now; if I can make him half as good as Nozomi, that'll be a big relief for everybody here. I'm just trying to make sure I have an opportunity to help her later, that I'm still going to _be here_ later." I smiled even though she couldn't see me. "I know it's hard. I just…I just don't see how else to do it, you know?"

"So, you'll be up here to check up on her, right—at some point?"

I glanced at the clock. "At some point, yes, definitely."

"All right, then," she said. "Go on to lunch. Tell Asuka to call me, okay?"

"Of course. Thanks, Horaki."

She didn't answer. She didn't really _understand_. She just pretended to.

I didn't blame her for that. Few people could really appreciate the gravity of the situation. After all, Japan had been untouched to that point. We were all safe and comfortable—minus some shortages of supplies. Those who'd lived to see Tokyo-2's Angel invasion were a small minority, and they were inclined to just forget.

#

Sasaki and I worked through scenarios for the rest of the afternoon. There was no shortage of Angels to try him against or battlefields to drop the Eva into. It was work we couldn't have done without a lot of other people programming the simulations and setting the parameters for each exercise. It would've been a waste to leave their work unused, after all.

Around six, we came up on our mandatory break again, timed to coincide with dinner, and that was fine by me. Hours and hours of time in the simulator helped Sasaki learn how to react and make decisions, but there was only so much that could be seen in real time. We recorded each exercise for later review and analysis, and just before dinner, I snuck to my office to check some film. Sasaki had been fighting the Disc Angel in the simulator and got his foot run over, and I replayed some footage to see if he had a chance to dodge.

As I was going frame-by-frame through a clip, there was a knock on the door. It was Asuka.

"Hey," she said, wearing a red sweater and brown slacks. "You coming to dinner?"

"Ah, yeah, just needed a minute," I said, going back to my computer to lock it. "Sorry about that. Hyuga isn't mad, is he?"

Asuka shrugged. "Actually, I told him we might go out tonight."

"Yeah? Where to?"

"Prigioni's?"

I winced. "That's a bit of a hike."

"Too busy for a romantic Italian dinner, huh?"

I glanced at the phone, with its blinking light and pixellated display of missed calls.

"All right," I said, smiling. "Prigioni's it is."

#

Let's make one thing clear: Asuka wasn't the type to plan something like this for her own sake. She enjoyed the glow of the spotlight, but she wanted other people to be the ones to point it her way. One time, the Japanese government asked us to participate in a dinner honoring us and Misato. I didn't want to go, but Asuka was into it at first. She signed up in a heartbeat, but when they asked her what kind of food she wanted, or if she'd accept a statue or just a plaque or whatever, Asuka hissed at the phone and said,

"Isn't that your job to decide? Surprise me!"

And she hung up the phone and got back on her laptop to work.

I didn't bring that up while we were on the way to Prigioni's, but it was in the back of my mind. Asuka wanted my time, and I saw no need to refuse her.

It was warm and muggy as we left the Defense Agency building in National Square, and the Square itself was alive, just like the insects that chirped and buzzed about. Reconstruction efforts in the square had seen the old fences taken down and most of the walkways and facades repaired, but the fountain was still cracked and drained of water—a reminder of what had happened, of what couldn't be allowed to happen again.

Prigioni's was in the old city, where bus service was spotty and some of the smaller buildings and homes had fallen into disrepair. Even so, Signora Prigioni kept hold of her old restaurant even after Instrumentality. It wasn't much to hold on to—an open kitchen on the left side with just a small handful of tables against the wall on the right—but it was hers, and she wasn't letting go.

Only one couple was seated there when we arrived. A young man, seated facing the door, noticed us right away. He met Asuka's gaze and touched his partner's hand, but Asuka quieted him down:

"Shh," she said, putting a finger to her lips and winking. "Can you keep a secret?"

The man nodded at that, and his companion smiled and nodded as we passed. Asuka didn't miss a beat, leading us to the table at the back-right corner of the room. She drew a red curtain behind me, and I sat in front of it, with Asuka facing the door. She exhaled and relaxed visibly as she sat.

"Nice to see the sun again," she said. "I think I'm getting too pale—sitting under those fluorescent lights all day long."

True, it was a change from the base. Instead of plastic and metal and cool white lights, we had the warm glow of fake candles and the rough, irregular texture of a wooden table and chairs.

But we didn't have a lot of time to enjoy the scenery: a stout woman with a wart on her nose came to our table. With a red apron over her clothes and a notepad in hand, she was all business until she looked up and saw our faces.

"Ah, you're back! You're back, my dears!" She hugged Asuka with one arm. "How have you been?"

"Good, very good, Signora," said Asuka. "How's Alessandro?"

"Oh, he's being a bum," said the signora, scowling. "He's taken up with a woman—a police officer. She's nice—too good for him, really—but now he has ideas of becoming a police officer himself! Can you imagine?"

I winced. "Is he losing weight?"

The signora shook her head, eyes wide. "I wish! For his sake, I wish. That might be the only good thing to come of this." She reached out a hand to me. "And how are you, Dear?"

"Hanging in there," I said, grasping her hand for a moment. "It's nice to get out and see you."

"You two are always welcome," she said with a smile. "But!" She clapped her hands, and she picked her notepad up from the table. "I know you must be busy. Do you need menus, or do you already have something in mind?"

"For times like these," Asuka began, "it's nice to get something you know. Seaweed spaghetti for me, please."

"Meatballs and rice, please," I said.

"You got it," she said, jotting down our orders, and she disappeared back into the kitchen.

A server soon came by with a pot of tea, and Asuka poured out a cup for herself.

"Isn't this nice?" she said. "Nice to see the signora again, right? Or to spend time with people you care about?"

I coughed. "Asuka…"

"What?"

"Did you talk to Horaki?"

At that, Asuka's smile vanished. She slid her teacup aside, folded her hands, and leaned forward. "Yes," she said. "I talked to Hikari. Don't you think it'd be nice to take her here—her, and Suzuhara, and Nozomi?"

I sat back, watching the specks of tea leaves in my cup. "I think Nozomi would feel like a fifth wheel there."

"That's not the point!" Asuka tapped her finger on the table. "What's the deal, Shinji? What's got into your head all of a sudden? I thought you and Nozomi were close."

A server stopped by again with some bread and oil. I took a slice and dipped it into the saucer of oil. I shook it so any loose droplets would fall away, and I said,

"I thought so, too, but…" I sighed. "…there's been a lot Nozomi's kept from me. I'm not sure what I can do about that right now."

Asuka's expression softened at that, and she ran a finger around the rim of her teacup. "So, that's why you're doing double doses of exercises with Sasaki now?"

I shrugged. "I have to do something."

"You chose to be here."

"So I need to give it everything I've got, yes."

Asuka nodded at that absently, still running her finger around the teacup rim. "So I've heard." She folded her arms, and she leaned forward again. "That's a nice-sounding sentiment, but I think you need to be careful, Shinji—with yourself and with Sasaki."

"How's that?"

"You never really wanted to be a pilot. I always did." She put a hand to her chest—to the ribbed fabric of her red sweater. "I was gonna be the one to save the world, and I pushed myself to make that happen. But I think you and I both know that girl didn't really care about saving the world—not the way she should've, anyway." She took a slice of bread from the basket and held it up for both of us to see. "Just like if you're an Italian chef, you probably don't care about the bread, but people expect you to care, so you do what you're supposed to do."

I frowned. "You think I don't really believe in this?"

"You do, or you don't. If you do—if you really do—then don't worry about it." She shrugged. "No sense in doing otherwise, right?"

"I don't want to be better than other people," I said.

"I know that. That's not you."

"But I don't want to stay the way I am," I went on. "There are lots of people out there—like you, or Misato, or Hyuga, or everyone else in the base—and they're all working hard. They're working so hard. I won't betray them."

Asuka raised an eyebrow. "So you need to do more?"

"Yes."

"And how much is that?"

My mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. Thankfully, I wasn't on the hook for very long: the signora came by again. "Food's almost ready!" she told us, and we both smiled at her.

The reprieve was short-lived, though, as Asuka's penetrating gaze settled back on to me. The best I could do was say,

"Asuka."

"Yes?"

"Why spaghetti with seaweed?"

She let out a sharp breath, shaking her head. "Well, if you must know, it was something Mama used to make. How she got good seaweed outside of Japan I'll never know."

"It's pretty good," I said.

"I think so, too."

"What was it—the last time we were here, I tried it?"

She nodded.

"Thanks," I said, "for introducing it to me."

I touched her fingers, and she closed her hand over my own.

"You're welcome," she said, smiling. "That's what I'm here for."

#

Late the next day, we got word that the Angels were making for Shandong Island, an important Chinese port.

Sasaki was dispatched straight away, and as afternoon turned to evening, I stayed on the line with him. Piloting an Eva at night is ten times worse than in the daylight: without the grounding of a horizon and scenery, it's a easier to get lost in the beast. Keeping a voice in his head was a way to make sure he'd stay in his own mind.

"How is it in there?" I asked at one point.

Sasaki cast a silent, exasperated look at the camera. Unit-14 was strapped to an airplane once again, and you can't exactly take a book to read on the way over. Sasaki's arms floated in the LCL, but he was buckled in place. The result was not a happy image.

"Yeah," I said, "that's about what I thought, sorry."

"Maybe next time," he suggested, "you guys can let me out of the harness? It'd be nice to go for a swim every once in a while. I'm feeling a little stiff."

I looked to Hyuga, who shook his head. "Turbulence."

"No go on that," I said over the radio. "You could take a bump."

"Thought so." He sighed.

"Well," I said, "look at it this way: get an Angel killed today, and there will be one less left to worry about. Then it'll all be over soon."

He nodded at that but said nothing, and I took my hand off the transmit switch. It was a break in the conversation, and that was a good time for a sip from a can of coffee. Who knew if the Angel would even dare to engage us at night? Sasaki could have to spend the whole night outside of Japan—and in Chinese hands, no less.

"Ops," said a controller, "we're seeing a drop in RPMs on engine number three."

I put down my coffee.

"Any word from the pilots?" asked Hyuga, trotting over to the far side of the room.

A flight controller pressed down on her headset earphone. "No, we have no communication with the flight crew for the last six minutes."

I got on the radio. "Sasaki," I said, "do you think anything's wrong here? Have you heard anything? Seen anything?"

He held out his hands and shook his head. "Ikari, I can't even crane the Eva's neck. What am I going to see?"

Not much, admittedly, but he did have a forward-facing view. For most of the flight, we kept the Eva's eyes closed to protect from wind damage, but Sasaki opened the Eva's eyes, which flooded the entry plug visualization system with twilight.

"Exterior floods?" I suggested.

A pair of shoulder-mounted lights came on, showing the top of the aircraft and the wing surfaces.

As well as a pair of dark shapes that crawled along the top of the wing.

"Major!" I yelled. "Major, what is that?"

Hyuga grimaced as he saw the images on the front projector, and he raced to the front. "We need those floods rotated; what do we have here?"

Another controller worked his console, and the flood lights turned to illuminate the enemy: two shriekers. They stared back at us with their triplet eyes, their mouthparts spinning in alternating directions. The shriekers clung to the top of the starboard wing. Exposed by the light, they swung underneath the airframe, and two cones energy blasted through the number four engine, furthest to the Eva's right. Two of the engines were smoking husks, and the plane began to drift.

A clamor went through the room, but Hyuga was on the case.

"Okay, people," he said, raising a hand. "Okay, listen, listen up. Let's get the full staff on scene, right now. This plane is going down. Navigation and Launch Systems, we need to get the Eva clear and to a safe splashdown point. Liaison, we need the PLA, SDF, and any other friendly forces on scene for recovery and defense. Everyone else, do what you need to do to preserve functionality for a wet landing. This Eva is going down.' He clapped his hands. "Now, let's get to it!"

The room went abuzz. Guards opened the doors for additional staff and controllers to make their way in.

"Ikari!" cried Sasaki. "What's happening? What do I do?"

I leaned forward as I pressed on my transmitter. "Sit tight," I said. "The plane's going down; we're going to do everything we can to get you home safely."

"How is that going to happen?" he asked.

I slid my can of coffee aside, and I stared at the overhead image of the plane veering further and further to its right—and all over dark blue water.

"I don't know yet."


	10. What You Leave Behind

**What You Leave Behind**  
 _Chapter Ten_

The people in the control room were very good at their jobs. They were quick to assess the situation, calm when delivering their analyses, and determined to find solutions even in the most dire of situations. For a few moments, I let myself watch Major Hyuga and the rest of the control room staff figure out the best course of action. Everyone had a turn to speak, and they all made the most of the time they had. It was all very orderly. If you were just looking at them, you might not have even realized it was an emergency at all.

That worked both ways, of course. It meant that they were calm despite the immense, continuing pressure of an Evangelion going down over open water. It also meant that, when the navigation controller told Hyuga the best course of action, it came out steady and measured, despite the gravity of the words:

"Recommend detaching the Eva and attempting to glide to Yantai Island."

There was just one problem with that: Yantai Island—the smaller island northeast of Shandong—was over 100 kilometers away. Unit-14 and its dying plane were adrift over the Yellow Sea, with nothing but dark water all around.

The shriekers blasted the engines with their siren songs, and when the plane was but a gliding metal husk, the shriekers started cutting through the wings. Each scream was like the flame of a blowtorch. We were lucky to get the Eva detached and gliding before the plane began to tumble.

Sasaki was a wreck. There's no more helpless feeling than being stuck in the deployment envelope: you can't do anything, and you're just along for the ride. Nozomi always hated it, and Sasaki was much the same. Guidance for the envelope was up to the on-board computers, which did their best to steer the Eva toward Yantai, but with the Eva flying head-first, Sasaki was suspended by the seat restraints and holding on to the controls for dear life.

"Ikari!" he cried. "Are you sure it's all right? I think I hear something: a banging, or something crawling around?"

If there was, we couldn't see it: the Eva's head was fixed forward-facing in the deployment envelope, so Sasaki couldn't see, and the overhead satellite view didn't show anything out of the ordinary, either.

I looked to Hyuga, who got on the comm loop with the rest of the controllers. "Do we have any explanation of this banging heard in the plug?" he asked.

"Should just be normal stresses associated with course adjustments," said another controller. "Don't usually make so many adjustments early after detaching."

"We think it's all right," I told Sasaki. "Just unusual amounts of course corrections being made."

"Are you sure?"

The controller threw up her hands and shook her head.

"As sure as we can be at this point," I said.

Sasaki shot a nervous look at the camera, but he said nothing more. He just gripped the actuation levers a little tighter and steeled himself for the most nerve-wracking fifteen minutes of his life.

The other controllers were still hard at work trying to find a way to save him. They started talking about a series of jetpack burns to try to eke out the last few kilometers to land or to get the Eva closer to shallow water. The Liaison controller ran his mouth in Chinese to get the PLA to help with recovery efforts.

But all I could do was sit there. We didn't have a procedure for this. We'd fought countless battles against Angels, but something as simple as an aircraft failure over water? No, we were unprepared. The book wasn't written. Someone didn't have the foresight for it. We prepared so much for what we knew could be a problem. We were fools that way.

It left me watching the time tick by on the control room's master clock. With each second, Sasaki covered another hundred meters. The dot on the map grew closer to land, but he was bleeding altitude. The Eva wasn't a real glider, even in the deployment envelope. At best, it was a brick with wings.

But even a brick with wings is better than just a brick, and the enemy understood that, too.

"Ops," said the detection controller, "pattern yellow is on the move."

"Course?" asked Hyuga.

"Course projected for intercept fifteen kilometers south-southeast of Yantai Island."

The Mist Angel.

With mere minutes to intercept, Hyuga and the controllers devised a plan to deal with the Angel—or rather, to minimize the damage it could do.

"If it destroys the Eva's wings, Unit-14 will sink like a stone," said the navigation controller. "We'll have ninety seconds of full jetpack thrust to get us the rest of the way to Yantai, and that's it."

"Then that's what we have," concluded Hyuga. "As soon as the Angel gets here, if it compromises the envelope's wings, we use the jetpack to make distance and soften the landing."

I relayed this to Sasaki; he didn't take the news well.

"I'm just supposed to sit here and let it happen?" he asked.

"There's nothing we can do to fight it," I told him.

"And I'm going to be on the bottom of the sea with an Angel floating above me—I'm going to be a sitting duck!"

Hyuga came next to me, answering as soon as Sasaki was through. "If they want to fight him underwater, let them come," he said. "We've got to get him there safely first."

"We're prepared to take the chance," I said over the radio.

Sasaki scoffed at that. "I'm gonna die down there…" he muttered.

I took my finger off the transmit switch. "Don't we have anything else?" I asked Hyuga.

He shook his head. I looked past him, at Misato's desk, but she had her hands steepled, and she only raised both eyebrows and shook her head in turn.

One thing was certain, whether Sasaki and I liked it or not: the Mist Angel was coming.

Its haze cast a shadow even in the fading light. It flew in front of the moon, tainting that pure, white glow with a hint of blue. It hovered over the Eva, lying in wait like a lion stalking its prey.

And it was just a matter of time before it pounced: a corrosive tendril pierced the twilight and sliced through the Eva's right wing.

"Okay, that's our cue," I said over the radio. "Envelope jettison."

The black pieces of plastic blew apart, and the two halves tumbled away. Unit-14 assumed an aerodynamic shape, with its arms flush against its sides as it fell head-first.

"Okay, Sasaki, we'll need you to turn onto your back so the engine can buy you altitude and distance," I said.

Unit-14 extended its arms, and the drag pushed its upper body over its feet. The Eva fell feet-first. The jetpack's main thruster fired, backlighting the Eva in a fiery glow. The Eva rose. Instead of continuing a war of attrition against gravity, Unit-14 had stood its ground, willing to fight a force of nature with raw technological might.

"Sasaki, what are you doing?" I asked. "The speed's just going to come back, and you're going to hit the water at terminal velocity."

"It's okay, Ikari." He looked to the camera and smiled. "I'd be dead anyway if I hit the water, with the way things are right now."

"You—" I tried to speak, but words failed me for a moment. "Sasaki, no, you don't know that."

"If not me, then everyone who comes to rescue me: the divers, the rescue ships, the escorts—all of them. There's no defense against an Angel except for me."

The Eva soared into twilight, tracing out a bright streak in the sky.

"Sasaki," I said, balling my free hand into a fist, "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to kill the thing; it's the only way."

"No! No it is not! You can still—" I looked to Hyuga. "You can still cut the jetpack and save it to soften the landing. It wouldn't be that bad if you stop _right now_."

Hyuga got on the comm loop. "What are we looking at for minimum fuel for safe impact?"

"80% maximum propellant for 40g peak, Ops," said another controller.

The jetpack fuel gauge was on the middle section of the projector screen, and the line was already falling below that 80% mark.

"Sasaki," I said, "you need to turn back. Turn back now!"

He scoffed in amazement, and he stared at me. "Why aren't you helping me? This is what I'm supposed to do!"

"This isn't what we asked you to do!"

"You're asking something that's wrong!"

With that, Sasaki pushed the Eva ever higher, soaring into the Mist's body, and the Angel reacted in kind: it coalesced into a solid shape, like something between a spider and a starfish. Its arms slapped at the Eva, knocking Sasaki around like a fly trying to dodge a swatter. Every attack turned Unit-14 about. The hot gas of the jetpack swirled and coiled in the atmosphere, tracing out Sasaki's path in dark smoke that blotted out the fading sunlight.

"I see the core!" said Sasaki.

There it was, in the center of the huge network of arms: a great red spot, an eye looking down on the world of men. It glared at us with fury and destruction in mind, but Sasaki had the nerve to face it.

And he wasn't the only one.

"He'll need to maintain thrust," said Hyuga, "all the way through his attack, or he'll just bounce off and lose momentum."

"You're condoning this?" I said, gaping.

Hyuga nodded to the middle projector screen. "There's not going to be enough fuel to matter for landing. We're committed, at this point. He's committed."

The fuel gauge fell below the halfway line.

I sighed, and I rubbed my forehead. "Okay, Sasaki, listen: you need to maintain full thrust as you attack, even when you use the engine. You understand?"

"Okay." Eyes fixed on his target, Sasaki locked the thruster control in place. The Eva drew a prog knife from a shoulder pylon and raised the blade to the sky.

The Angel folded in its defenses around itself. Its arms layered over one another, forming a web of ephemeral blue tendrils.

"Engine—use the engine!" I said over the radio.

AT fields materialized, snapped, and reconnected, lighting up the sparse clouds in the sky, and the Eva burst through. It cut through the Angel's arms one by one, and as the Angel shrieked and writhed, Sasaki—and the Eva—roared in victory. Their battlecry resounded through my headset, as well as for all the world to hear.

As through their screams and shouts could shatter the Angel's core.

But they couldn't do that. Only the knife could.

And Sasaki drove that knife all the way through.

For a moment, everything was quiet. The control room was watching Sasaki and the Angel; the monitors hardly mattered. The Angel's cries faded out.

And Unit-14? Its jetpack sputtered with the prog knife halfway through the Angel's core. Even Sasaki looked upon this with a mix of triumph and uncertainty, but for a moment—just a moment—the Eva stood still in midair, with the knife through the Angel's core, and the Angel floated there, too. Its arms turned as black as ash and crumbled.

That ash fell around Unit-14 as it sank back toward the ocean.

"You did it, Sasaki," I said, breaking the silence. "Are you proud of yourself?"

Sasaki stared down at the water below, and he said one thing—just one thing—that haunts me even now.

"Ikari," he said, "I gave everything I've got, right to the end." He looked to the camera. "Didn't I?"

I couldn't bear to watch him.

"Okay, we need minimal plug depth and synch rate," ordered Hyuga. "Do everything you can to prepare the pilot and Eva for impact. Combat effectiveness is not important. Go!"

But there wasn't time to do much. I watched the clock. I counted down the seconds and the altitude. Sasaki hit the water in under fifteen seconds.

The Eva splashed down, and all our feeds went blank. We weren't even given the solace of static to try to piece something together from.

"Shinji." Hyuga tapped my chair. "You need to ask if he can hear us."

I looked at him like he'd grown a second head, but Hyuga raised both eyebrows and sighed. What else can we do? in other words.

"Sasaki," I broadcast to the void. "Sasaki—Unit-14, this is Manoah Base. Do you read me?"

Silence.

"Eva Unit-14, this is Manoah Base. Do you _read_ me?"

"Ikari…"

The voice on the other end was weak and garbled, but it heralded more telemetry coming back to us. The screens came to life with tables and plots of data. The Eva was sinking, but we still had a lifeline to it.

"Ikari…it hurts. My head…can't see…"

"You can't see?" I asked. "Or the Eva?"

"It hurts…"

Hyuga shook his head, but he gave some instructions to me: "Stay with him and try to figure out his condition." He turned to Misato. "General, the scheduled operation is over. The Eva is rapidly sinking to the bottom of the Yellow Sea. What are your orders?"

Misato sat with her arms folded, leaning back in her chair. She cast her eyes along the front projector screens, which described the Eva's deteriorating condition: hardware faults along the Eva's back and legs, along with depth increasing by the second.

"Get my Eva back, Major," she said. "Talk to the Chinese and Koreans for help. Get MSDF on the phone; we'll need a salvage ship and an armed escort at the least. I leave the rest to you."

"Yes, General!"

But while Hyuga was satisfied with that, I rose from my seat. "Misato!"

She raised her eyebrows. "You have something to say, Plugcom?"

"I do. An Eva is sinking, and you're content to wait for ships to get there—while Sasaki is injured and in pain?"

"What else would you have me do?"

"Ask for help from someone who can act right now," I said. "Ask Ayanami."

Misato leaned forward, showing an apologetic smile. "We've cashed in our favor. I doubt we'd get another."

A soft voice answered her from the center of the room. "It wouldn't even be wise to ask."

Ayanami. She stepped up to my row of cubicles, eyes locked on me.

"I allowed General Katsuragi one favor," she said. "You saw it was futile. This is no different. Do not ask me to act again; nothing good would come of it."

"No," I said, shaking my head, and I met her in the aisle. "You don't get off that easy, Ayanami! You can't just stand here and tell me you won't do anything! This is your fault; you did this! You're responsible!"

"I'm responsible?"

"Yes!"

"No, I'm not. I didn't choose to fight that Angel. I didn't indoctrinate that boy to fight no matter what."

I rose to face her down. I stomped my foot on the floor. "You asked me to do this!"

"And you asked him," she said coolly. "You asked him, and he chose to be there."

Those words were like a cup of vinegar to my eyes.

Ayanami must not have liked it, either, for she looked away. "I'm sorry," she said. "I can't do anything more."

I wiped my cheek. "Why not?" I begged of her.

"I'm not strong enough."

I laughed at that—a bitter, awful laugh, and by the time I could bear to look at her again, she was gone.

She was gone, and Sasaki was sinking.

My heart sank with him.

#

The enemy got what they wanted, even with another Angel slain. The Eva was at the bottom of the sea. At last, Japan was defenseless, and the enemy took advantage: they crept in on us like a rising tide. Within twelve hours, Upper Hokkaido and Kyushu were invaded. Guns and bombs kept the enemy at bay for only so long, and even where they were effective, the Disc Angel had driven across water to make sure no tank or aircraft could remain in-theater and survive.

As for Sasaki, he was still alive—for a time. Even with LCL to soften the blow, Sasaki had taken a pretty big hit to the head. The Eva hadn't fared much better: with broken bones and shattered armor plates, it was spending all its energy to heal and stay alive, with precious little left over to fight with.

Thankfully, the Eva was recoverable: the Yellow Sea was relatively shallow, with depths only down to 150 meters or so in most places, compared to a frigid and bone-crushing 3000 meters the other side of the Koreas. Chinese ships were already on the scene, guarding the wreck, and MSDF would wage a salvage operation as soon as possible.

But with Sasaki in bad shape, we'd need another pilot. Misato took us aside in her office, and she asked,

"What's the status of Akio Terada?"

He was a boy and—it seemed—the next victim beyond Sasaki and Nozomi before him. Clearly it was time to throw the boy a party. I'd play music for the event; Horaki could bake a cake. Asuka could invite some dancers, and we'd all gather around him and say, "Congratulations!" while a montage of sexually-suggestive body horror and pseudo-religious imagery played before his eyes. What better way to introduce him to the experience of being an Eva pilot, right?

He may have been ready, but Asuka had been working with him more than I had, at least over the last few days, so I didn't know him as well. And you know what? That suited me just fine. I left it to Asuka and washed my hands of it.

I went back to my office, and I watched tapes of the battle: Sasaki and the Mist—the leadup to it and the aftermath. When did he decide to defy us? Was it when I called back and told him to to just accept what we told him? Or did he make up his mind when the jetpack fired?

I searched back and forth between these two points in the footage—and scoured other clips, too—but after a while, I realized the point was moot. Even if I could pin down when that clicked for him, it wouldn't change what he did, never mind why.

At some point, I got a call from Asuka.

"They're going to try to train him to take the Eva to safety," she told me. "Get Sasaki out of there, get Terada inside, and just have him pilot it back home."

I stared at footage of Sasaki falling. The battle unfolded on mute in front of me. "Really?" I asked.

"Yeah. Do you want to see him?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"It'd probably be better with you," I said. "You—have a rapport with him."

"If that's what you want to call it, sure."

"You'll be fine."

"Uh-huh. What are you doing now?"

"I'm watching film."

"The Disc?"

I glanced back at the monitor. Unit-14 hit the water.

"No," I said.

"Shinji, be careful. Take care of yourself."

"I know; I will. I—" I sighed. "I'm trying."

"You wanna go home tonight? Make me something for dinner?"

"Making you food is supposed to cheer me up?"

"Uh, yeah? Don't tell me you don't enjoy it."

At that, I smiled a little. "Okay."

We said our goodbyes, and I hung up. Despite Asuka's best efforts, the sinking feeling in my stomach hadn't gone away completely. I left the footage on mute, and I stared at it. My eyes drifted out of focus, but I could still make out the shapes. Whether an ant falls into a puddle, a man falls into a pond, or an Eva falls into an ocean, it's all the same, isn't it? It all looks the same. It's just a matter of scale and meaning. An ant falling into a puddle means nothing, yet no matter how I let my eyes drift apart, I couldn't quite make the Eva look like an ant to me.

"Have you learned something yet?"

I jolted in my seat. The stranger stood before me—her white robes translucent and glowing and her hood blocking all but her lips.

"Or do you still fail to realize your mistakes?" she asked.

I rose from my seat and planted a fist on the desk. "I have nothing to say to you. Get out of my office!"

The stranger pursed her lips, like a teacher disappointed with a student. "Lilith has had her time with you. It's my turn now."

"Your turn for what?" I demanded. "To torment me, like you tormented Nozomi?" I scoffed. "Why don't you leave us alone? We're not your children!"

The stranger tilted her head slightly, and she stepped forward, stopping just short of my desk. "I still have a right to expect more of you. Look at what you've become. Look at what you do to yourselves."

She glanced at the back of the computer monitors, then back to me, and said,

'You destroyed that boy."

I pounded my fist on the table, and I pointed a finger straight at the stranger. "No, you did! You put him in that position! You did that!"

"I made him commit to fight?" The stranger shook her head. "No, you put that idea in his mind. Lilith was right about that. You made him aspire to something he could never live up to. You put the seed in his head. You tried to grow him into something he could not be. You were not satisfied with him as he was, and so you grew something else in his place—you grew the concept of someone else in your own mind, and you never saw that what he was and what you wanted him to be weren't the same. You replaced him with the fruit of your own imagination. That's how you destroyed him. Are you happy with what you reaped instead?"

I narrowed my eyes, trembling, but I stayed where I was and kept my voice in check. "So this is what you do now?" I said. "Is this all you want—to kick people when they're down? You do it to me now, like you did with Nozomi? You're pathetic, and I am not afraid of you!"

The stranger pressed her lips together in an amused smile. "Then why are you shouting at me?"

I snarled. "You—"

"I torment no one," said the stranger. "Not you, not Nozomi Horaki. I only told her the truth—the truth she would not admit to herself."

"And what is that?"

"That seeking salvation for others but not yourself saves no one. It did not work for Lilith. It did not work for you. It did not work for Kazuto Sasaki, and it will not work for her." She raised her chin slightly, as though looking straight into my eyes. "That," she said, "is why you should let go of yourself, Shinji."

"No way," I said, shaking my head with a death glare aimed at her. "Not a chance."

"Stop hurting yourself trying to resist," she said. "You only destroy yourself and all the people around you. That accomplishes nothing."

I raised an eyebrow. "Does it now?"

"It does," she said. "Struggle and suffer, or find solace with everyone. You decide."

The hooded stranger faded away, leaving behind only a glowing outline of her body, but that too disappeared in time.

Huffing to myself, I sat back down, and I played the battle footage again. I turned the sound up, drowning the room in a low hum of an empty radio channel. I adjusted the track controls for this time, adding in the comm loop from the control room.

"Shinji, you need to ask if he can hear us," said Hyuga.

" _Makinami_ , this is Manoah Base Liaison," said a controller. "Switch to underwater acoustic mode for Eva voice and telemetry uplink…"

"Go to the back room." That was Maya. "We need everything we have on long-term S2 engine output for underwater survival."

So many voices—all of them trying to take care of some small piece of the effort. Each of us had a handle on something so small as to be almost insignificant. Desperate we were to regain control on the situation; we talked and talked, trying to get others to offer help.

When I heard them all together, all talking over each other, I heard the noise for what it was: a throng of humanity trying to change the world in a small way, yet helpless to do it themselves.

I paused the video, and I turned off the monitor. I closed the folders of intelligence and personnel profiles. I wiped the desk clean and shuffled everything else into the drawers. The world began anew in front of me.

And the first thing I did was pick up the phone.

"Hello, Horaki residence."

"Hi, Horaki," I said, cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear. "It's me."

"Oh? This is a surprise." The words had a sharpness to them, like a snake's fangs. "What do you want?"

"Is Nozomi around?" I asked.

"Now you want to talk to her?"

I glanced past the monitor, at the empty space in front of my desk. "I saw that thing again," I told Horaki. "The woman in Nozomi's sketches. She told me something—about Nozomi."

A pause. "She did? You think you know what that was about now?"

"I might." I opened the bottom drawer of my desk, and I took out a sketchpad. "And maybe," I said, "just maybe, I can help her the way I never could before."

"She's not home, Ikari."

I sighed. "Really?"

"But," said Horaki, "I know where you can find her."

#

Once I got off the phone with Horaki, I headed back into town to go north, to the Horaki home in Toyoshina.

During the walk from National Square to the train station, I realized just how desperate and frightened the Japanese people had become. A heavy military and police presence patrolled the Square and the surrounding streets. Some roads had been turned into one-way streets to control traffic. A car went by with cases of water strapped to the roof. Mankind had always been a short way from extinction, and in moments like those, that was evident in every word and action.

Since I'd joined Project Manoah, I'd taken a dim view of my past self for not understanding that—for not acting with enough urgency. I'd been content to hide away in the soup kitchen, tending to the poor and hungry. I'd judged myself for not wanting to take responsibility for the decision I'd made. Helping out at the kitchen was, in my eyes, a way to feel less guilty about being in hiding.

With the Eva underwater and Japan on the verge of breaking down, I looked back on that time differently. It's true I'd been hiding. There was something I didn't want to face. I didn't want people to challenge me, but that didn't make helping those poor families—the ones who could find comfort in even diluted miso soup—something that was wrong to do. All along, I'd kept to an assumed name and wore sunglasses hoping not to be recognized, worried that someone would judge me for being there and not doing something else.

I'm not saying I would've kept doing that—and that alone—if I'd had the chance. But if I had decided such a thing, I think I would've gone there and worked every day using my own name, whatever the consequences might've been.

#

I found Nozomi sitting by a bridge at the edge of downtown Toyoshina. The bridge was different from the one I'd seen her at before—instead of a scenic view near the train tracks, this one marked the border between the town and farmland. Nozomi sat at the top of the riverbank with her sketchpad lying on her legs. She watched the bridge as cars, trucks, and SDF caravans went by. Even as I approached, she made no move to acknowledge me, but when I stopped beside her, she already knew I was there.

"So," she said, not even looking up, "I heard Sasaki's kinda fucked."

An eighteen-wheeler blew by, throwing a wake of wind at my face. Toyoshina, like Tokyo-2, was crawling with activity. Down the road, a crowd gathered at the police station, and officers instructed the citizenry on possible evacuation. A caravan of trucks rolled up to the town art museum, and the staff carried out paintings and pottery to take to safety. With all the traffic going over the bridge, I had to hold my arms out to keep steady.

"Yeah, he is," I said, wavering in the wind. "I fucked him up a little bit, too."

Nozomi glanced up from her sketchpad. "That right?" she said, twirling her pencil. She frowned, and she hunched over the sketchpad. "Well, I'm sure you didn't try to fuck him up on purpose."

"May as well have," I said, trying to find some balance in the breeze.

"You're always hard on yourself, Ikari."

"You think I shouldn't be?"

"I dunno," she said with a shrug, and she patted the grass next to her. "But I don't think you have to be so hard on yourself that you have to stand."

I laughed to myself, shook my head, and crouched down, supporting myself with one hand as I sat on the grass and dirt. The earth was soft—it'd rained the day before—and if I didn't do my own laundry, I'm sure someone would've complained about me sitting there. I pulled my knees to my chest and sighed, and we sat there for a moment as I gazed over the farmland outside of town.

"So," Nozomi said at last, flipping to the next page of her sketchpad, "you guys need me to come back?"

I looked at her. "Is that something you want to do?"

She took her pencil off the page for a moment, and she tapped it on the binding. She stared down the road, sighed, and said,

"I dunno."

She captured all the hustle and bustle of the day well, from traffic on the street to people packing up their cars with boxes and grocery bags. She rendered every detail, down to the dimple on a woman walking by—a woman who smiled just to put on a brave face for her children. With little features like those, alongside precise and perfect lines, the sketch was more like a photograph than anything else.

It was more like a photograph than a piece of art.

"What's on your mind?" I asked. "The nightmare?"

"Nah, I'm over that."

"Are you?"

She put her pencil down and looked at me. "What happened, Ikari?"

I gulped, and I ran my fingers through my hair. "I saw her again: the woman in the hood."

"Real bitch, isn't she?"

"Yeah." I bowed my head, looking between my knees. "She tried to tell me that what happened to Sasaki was all my fault."

"Was it?"

I sighed. "She wasn't all wrong. I spent a lot of time…" I laughed to myself and shook my head. "A _lot_ of time—trying to motivate Sasaki. I thought that would help him feel comfortable with piloting. It didn't work out that way."

I met Nozomi's gaze again. Her eyes were steady, and her mouth was slightly open.

"I guess…" She glanced aside. "I guess that's what being a pilot is, right?" She laughed. "It's not what you think it's gonna be like, is it?"

"It never is," I said, putting on a smile.

"Not even a little."

I nodded, and I swallowed again. "But you know," I went on, "she also told me you felt the same way."

"That right?" Nozomi looked to the sky, and she brushed some stray hairs out of her face—just to have them blown around again by a passing car. "I think somebody isn't very good at keeping secrets."

"Nozomi—"

"Well," she said, cutting me off, "maybe I won't be piloting anymore. Then that's just my problem, you know? You've got somebody to train, right? I'll manage."

"Maybe you will."

I stared over the scene. On one side, low buildings and homes formed the downtown area of Toyoshina. On the other, across the stream, lay the fields and farms of the town's outskirts. They sat next to each other, separated by water yet connected by the bridge.

"Maybe you will," I said again, "but even if you never get in the pilot's seat again, I want to _know_ that you'll be all right."

Nozomi flipped to a new page, and she rested her arms on the pad. "You don't need to spend this kind of time with me, Ikari."

"I still choose to be here."

"You've got stuff to take care of."

"Yeah—right here, if you'll talk to me."

"And if I don't wanna talk?"

I zipped open my backpack, and I took out a sketchpad. "I can learn from the master?" I offered.

She peered at the top sketch. "That's not bad," she said. "Maybe you don't have that much left to learn from me."

"That'd be a lie."

"Yeah, a little."

She took my sketchpad in hand, poring over it with her critic's eye. Granted, I was a little uncomfortable with her taking such a keen interest in my art: I'd only just drawn a scene from the train station while waiting to get up there. It wasn't anything that meaningful.

"You see, look," she said, pointing out some lines around a train window. "You gotta put stuff in it."

"Stuff?"

"Yeah, stuff. This is a window. I can see right through it, but that just tells me there are seats inside. I don't feel anything looking at that. It just is."

"I've been working on technique," I said, nodding along with her. "I'd like to do something like that, someday."

"You should." She handed the pad back to me. "Once you try, I think it'll feel good. It's supposed to."

"Supposed to?"

"Yeah, it should. Like being a pilot, right? We save the world. Should feel good about it."

I glanced over the horizon, and I squinted. "I don't know if I ever felt that way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Sometimes there was relief that I survived, or anguish because it hurt a lot, or because it hurt someone else, but I don't know if I ever looked forward to it—maybe one time, when I thought I was doing well. Saving people for the sake of it—I don't know if I was ever capable of that."

Nozomi nodded at that. "I thought so."

I winced. "Really?"

"That kind of thing—courage for the sake of it—that isn't you."

I glanced at her from the side. "Nor you—that's what you said, right?"

"Yeah—that, that's a big, abstract thing. It's something I can't draw. And if it's something I can feel, then I expect to be able to draw it."

She gestured to her lap—where her sketchpad lay. It was open to a blank page.

"But I dunno how to draw that," she said again. "So, you know, as far as being a pilot goes—I knew right away that wasn't a good reason for me to do it. It was never going to fit with me."

"So, what did you do?"

"I tried to find something that made sense for myself." She shrugged. "But, you know, sometimes an alien will try to get in your head and tell you you're doing it wrong. And maybe she's right about that. I dunno." She sat back a bit, leaning more on the embankment. "Doesn't seem like it was a good idea, looking back on it."

"Why not?"

"Does that really matter right now?"

"Nozomi—"

"Look around, Ikari." She gestured to the bridge and the nearby intersection, both jammed with traffic. "We've got bigger problems."

"Maybe that's true," I said, following her gaze, "but that doesn't change that I'm worried for you—and that I have been worried ever since I saw those drawings, ever since I found you in your room that day."

"I let it get to me. I should've known better. It's not a big deal now."

I leaned forward, blocking her line of sight. "Then why did she appear to you?" I asked. "Why did she choose to look like your sister? Is it because of how Horaki pushed you away?"

"No, no." Nozomi shook her head. "Don't be silly. Hikari's done nothing wrong since then."

"Then why?"

Nozomi looked away from me, staring over the embankment to the open fields and scattered farms beyond.

And she got up.

"Let's go, Ikari," she said.

"Go?" I scrambled to close my own sketchpad and stuff it in my bag. "Go where?"

But Nozomi didn't answer. She trotted up the riverbank, making for the road into town. I slung my bag over my shoulder, and I followed her.

#

We trudged two kilometers from the bridge toward the center of town, pushing against the gusts of wind that foretold a storm to come. The sky was overcast—the kind of bright overcast that makes it hurt to look up.

Nozomi led me to a high school. The main entrance had waist-high brick walls and a short gate—one that wouldn't deter anyone determined to scale it. Across the road was an athletic field with nets running ten meters high. No one wanted a soccer ball bounding out of the field of play and smashing a windshield, I guessed.

The significance of the place wasn't clear to me at first. Nozomi had her choice of picturesque views around Toyoshina, but this spot wasn't so charming. The netting, utility poles, and tall trees around the school's perimeter hemmed us in. It was like being trapped in a tunnel, with light coming from only two directions.

I didn't understand until Nozomi explained it to me. As we stood in front of the school gate, she said,

"This is Hikari's school."

I smiled to myself and bowed my head.

Nozomi paced about the turnaround lane in front of the gate. She tapped her foot on a drainage grating between the lane and the main road, which was one-way and only one lane wide as well.

"I was standing about here," she went on, and she untucked her sketchpad from under her arm. "I'd been waiting for a while, and I'd started trying to sketch the facade and some of the windows. I still have it, in an old pad. That was March, though. It was March, but it was still hot as hell.

"School was out for the year, but Hikari had some business with the administrators. We were going to buy some things in town, so we just stopped here while we were in the neighborhood. Hikari must've spent around an hour talking to people inside. I thought she might come get me if it would take a while, but she was busy, and I didn't mind."

Nozomi pointed to the main door with the eraser end of her pencil.

"Hikari came out of there like an earthquake," said Nozomi. "She was pissed—more pissed than when I was a kid and started painting on the walls. She kinda barked at me to come along, and we started back to 147…" Nozomi jerked her head along the one-way road, back the way we'd come. "I wasn't gonna say a word about it, you know? It was her stuff. I had some pencils to buy.

"But I saw it was getting to her—I mean _really_ getting to her. She clenched her fists so tight I thought she might draw blood. So I asked her, right? I asked her even though I didn't really expect an answer. It just sorta happened. And you know what she said?"

I shook my head, eyes transfixed on Nozomi. Nozomi seemed aware of my gaze. She spun on a heel, turning her back to me.

"Hikari started saying it wasn't much. 'Don't worry; it's not a big deal.' That sort of thing.

"And then she caught herself. She stopped in her tracks when we were only about halfway down the road. She looked at me, like she just understood that _I_ was the one standing there, and she said something different:

" 'Sorry, Nozomi,' is what she said. She smiled like she knew she'd done something wrong, and she explained it. She'd been trying to get the school to accept the classes she'd taken in Tokyo-3, and they weren't going to do it. She was gonna have to repeat a year. And she gave them hell for it because they could've done anything to let her make it up—a special test or something—but they'd given her the runaround and she'd had to go up to _their_ office just to get a straight answer. That's why they were bastards—her words, not mine.

"She took a minute to blow off some steam, and when she was done letting go of all that, she looked at me and said, 'Thanks for listening, Nozomi.' And she smiled. She was gonna kick someone's ass for fucking her over like that. She'd never let something like that go. It just took her a bit to deal. And after that…" Nozomi shuffled her feet on the drainage grating. "After that, she was Hikari again. There was shopping to do. She wanted to get some tofu. And we didn't talk about that whole thing again. She dealt with it."

I took a couple steps toward the road, trying to catch her gaze. "That's good, right?"

Nozomi turned her head to look at me. "Is it?"

"She reached out to you. Shouldn't you be happy about that?"

Frowning, Nozomi turned her head away from me again. "Yeah. She did exactly what I asked her to do. I should've been happy about that. That should've felt good."

I stepped toward her. "Nozomi…"

"You'd have to be pretty monstrous," she went on, each word shaking her body a little, "to ask someone to bear their heart to you, to not hide anything, only for you not to actually be happy when they do. You'd have to be pretty selfish to feel like that wasn't enough."

I stepped up to her back and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're many things, Nozomi Horaki, but you're not selfish, and you're not monstrous."

"Yeah, well, you say nice things even when they're not true," she said, refusing to look at me.

"But sometimes they are true. And they are true _now_."

Nozomi shook her head and sighed—a pained, almost convulsive sigh mixed with a shudder. "You know, I wanted to feel something good from that. I wanted to appreciate what she did. And I can appreciate it up here." She tapped the side of her head. "But I don't feel it. I don't fucking feel it."

And so, there I glimpsed the true portrait of Nozomi Horaki. The girl who was so devoted to her art found there was something she couldn't capture in her sketches, something she couldn't hold in her heart. Nozomi put so much effort in depicting the true sense of a scene—more than just the literal details of who or what was there. She took liberties to convey a mood. That was important to her.

Yet that mood—the mood of a scene, or an interaction—was precisely what had eluded her.

Perhaps that, more than anything, is what convinced me I was wrong about Nozomi. I was very, very wrong about her. She wasn't much of anything like me. We got along well, most of the time, but Nozomi interacted with people, and wanted things from people, that were far different from what I'd dreamed of. Often, I'd wished to be left alone. Only rarely did I dare to try impressing people or to seek their gratitude and approval. To me, people have always been dangerous and flighty. I seldom hoped for more than casual indifference from them—or so I let myself believe, at least.

Nozomi did want more, though. She wanted that connection. She wanted that feeling.

She wanted the understanding that we were promised from Instrumentality—the kind of understanding that isn't always possible in the real world.

Nozomi judged herself for not feeling this connection. She placed the blame all on her own heart.

And that—that wasn't right.

I let Nozomi sniffle and cry for a time. She leaned back against me, and I didn't dare complain, but there was one question still on my mind.

"Nozomi," I said, "why did you pilot Eva?"

Nozomi wiped her face with her sleeve and composed herself. "I think there are a lot of people like me. People, right? They don't live up to their own expectations, but they want to. They want to change. They can't do that if they're dead or they've gone back to goo again." She turned her head slightly, enough for me to catch a glimpse of one eye. "I knew being an Eva pilot wouldn't fix that for me," she said, "but if doing it gave someone else a chance to figure that out—that's not so bad, right? It's not a bad reason to do it."

I put on a sad smile. "If only that were the real reason, right?"

She looked to the sky—the gray-white sky with thick and low-flying clouds loomed overhead.

"Yeah," she said at last. "I guess so."

"Nozomi." I squeezed her shoulder—lightly, this time. "Talk to your sister."

"And say what?"

"Say what you felt."

She scoffed. "Come on. It's pretty rotten."

Maybe it was, but that in itself may have been the problem with humanity: we as people are so caught up with what we think we should do or feel that we leave no room to be ourselves. We don't consider the possibility that we might be wrong.

"Nozomi," I said, "if you keep going with the way things are, you'll never find what you were looking for that day."

Nozomi turned around and stared at me for a moment—a moment long enough to make me think I may have said something appropriate instead of silly or overly sentimental.

Whatever she thought of it, she looked back at the high school gate and its short brick wall, then down the road back to Route 147. She took my hand off her shoulder, but she let the touch linger for just a moment.

"Nozomi?" I said.

"Come on, Ikari," she said, smiling slightly for the first time in a while. "I'm going home."

#

When we made it back to the Horaki home, Nozomi asked me to stand by the road. The business she had with her sister was her own, after all. I agreed, and I stood by the hedges in wait.

Nozomi knocked on the door, and Horaki met her there. She caught a glimpse of me, and she waved. I waved and nodded in return, and I wandered a little bit from the hedges, going across the road and into an overgrown field.

I watched the girls from the corner of my eye. Nozomi and Horaki stood at the door. Nozomi had her hands at her side, holding her sketchpad in one hand. She alternated between looking straight at Horaki and glancing aside as she tried to come up with words. Horaki, for her part, listened carefully to Nozomi's story. Though her arms were folded, Horaki nodded and even gave a smile from time to time, but she seemed loathe to interrupt, letting Nozomi do most of the talking.

But they _were_ talking, and I took that as a good sign.

Not everyone else appreciated that, though.

"You choose to spend time here, instead of training Terada or working to save Sasaki."

Rei Ayanami stood in the overgrown field with me. The setting sun was at her back, yet her form was perfectly clear, for the sun's rays went through her, rather than cast a shadow.

"Why?" she asked.

"I'm saving her," I said. "The help she needs is a little different from Sasaki or Terada, but it's still something I can offer. That she's my friend just makes it a little easier."

"This doesn't help anyone else. If doing this means you're all sent back to the sea, then it's for nothing."

"Maybe so," I admitted with a shrug, "but if that's what this is really about, then why did you keep me from getting shot? I wasn't important then."

"I knew you could be."

I laughed. I shook my head, pacing around her. "Okay, Ayanami," I said, stifling a chuckle. "You keep telling yourself that."

"I'm responsible for more than just you," she said, narrowing her eyes just a bit.

"But that's not what really matters to you," I said. "You showed me that yourself. The cause matters to you? Well, there it is!" I pointed at Nozomi with an outstretched arm. "That's what we're trying to save." I took a step closer to Ayanami, watching her with an unwavering gaze. "People matter. Our friends matter. I like to think I matter to you now. If you saved everyone except me, and Misato, and maybe Asuka or someone else—I don't know—what would you do then?"

"Don't put me in that position," she said, eyes locked on mine. "You won't like what I choose."

"All right," I said, backing off. "But I just know that, if I do like you asked me to do before—that's not something I can keep up."

"And if you fail then?"

"That's something I accept—and something you should, too." I smiled a little bit in pleading. "Are you happy, Ayanami?"

She looked aside. "I have an eternity to try to be happy."

I reached out to her, but my hand went through her shoulder, and she warded me off with a slight shake of the head. That was the way it was. Even the comfort I could offer her was fleeting and ephemeral.

"Ikari!"

Nozomi called to me from the Horaki doorstep. She waved me over as Horaki left us alone.

But she didn't leave without touching Nozomi on the shoulder, nor without Nozomi touching Horaki's hand in return.

As Horaki went inside, I caught up with Nozomi on the driveway. "What's going on?" I asked her.

"Hikari wants to know if you'll stay for dinner."

I glanced back, to the hedges and the overgrown field. Rei Ayanami was gone.

"Ikari?"

I snapped back to face Nozomi, and I laughed in apology.

"Sorry," I said, "was distracted. I'd love to. Is everything okay with her?"

Nozomi eyed the threshold before looking back to me. She shrugged.

"She doesn't get it, not all the way," Nozomi said, "but she wants to try."

"And you?"

"I wanna try, too."

"That's good."

"Yeah. I think so, too." Nozomi tucked her sketchpad under her arm, and she took one decisive step up into the house. "Oh, and Ikari?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe I wanna try being the pilot again also."

I stopped outside the door. "You do?"

"Yeah." She met my eyes and looked back at me with a cool, steady gaze. "For its own sake. Not mine."

I looked back to the overgrown field and said only,

"Either way, I support you."

#

The mission to rescue Sasaki and Unit-14 began the next day.

#

"Okay, let's put tension in the line," said Captain Aoba over the radio. "We've got an Eva to raise."

From the deck of the US salvage ship _Grapple_ , Aoba oversaw the Eva-specific aspects of the salvage mission. _Grapple_ 's massive crane leaned over the side of the ship, lowering four cables to the water below.

"We'd want to know how Sasaki's doing at this point." That was Misato. She paced in front of a glass panel with writing in orange marker. "Why don't you check in with him, Plugcom?"

I flinched, and I waved my hands over a bank of buttons and switches. An old CRT monitor in front of me showed only static.

"This one, sir," said a petty officer, who pointed out one unlit button. "Channel number four."

I wiped at my eyes and sighed. "Right, number four." I pushed the button down and fixed my headset on my ear. "Unit-14, Unit-14, this is Manoah Base Control aboard _Ise_. Do you read me?"

Silence. Misato stopped pacing. She glanced over her shoulder and looked across the room.

I turned my head to the side, following her gaze. "Do you read me?" I said again.

Silence. All eyes in the room turned to the end of my bank of terminals, where Nozomi Horaki sat. With a cocked head, she stared at another static-filled monitor.

I took my finger off the transmit switch. "Nozomi," I said.

"Yeah?" she said, not even looking back at me.

"Do you want to answer?"

"Oh, right!" She straightened up in her seat and shut her eyes. When she spoke, her voice had a low, husky tone. "Ikari? Ikari, is that you? It's so cold down here! I think I'm dying! Come and save me, Ikari! I don't want to die!" She opened one eye to meet my gaze. "How's that?"

Hyuga pressed two fingers to his temple. "Sasaki's weak; he won't have had food or water outside of what he can get from LCL for two days. Just establish contact and say that he'll try to follow instructions."

Nozomi shut her eye again and whispered, "I—I can hear you. I don't know if I'm strong enough to do anything, but I'll try."

Misato shook her head, but she gave me a hand gesture to continue on, and continue we did. For the moment, Nozomi's attempts to become an actress would be ignored. We had a scenario to prepare for. Sasaki was at the bottom of the ocean, and we were going to rescue him.

"Okay, now we'd get Nozomi—" Hyuga glanced down the row of terminals. "The real Nozomi," he clarified, "on the horn so we'd know she's ready to go."

I glanced at control panel again. The petty officer shadowing me put a finger on the row where the right button was, and I hung my head as I pushed it.

Within 24 hours of that time, practice would be over. We'd be on site to rescue Sasaki.

#

We were off-shore near Myoko Harbor, aboard the helicopter destroyer _Ise_. MSDF Escort Flotilla 5 had gathered to spearhead the Japanese portion of the operation, and we weren't alone. The US Navy had lent us the salvage ship _Grapple_ , where Aoba and his team stood by as we ran through the procedure. Divers from _Grapple_ had gone down with inflatable buoys, and we'd spent half an hour just getting the air supply pumps working right.

Aboard _Ise_ , the adjustments we had to make were more mundane. The computer systems in _Ise_ 's fleet operations room were even more primitive than those in Manoah Base's control room. The computers were old and non-standard, with an array of push buttons and lighted switches. Petty Officer Kobayashi had shadowed me for most of the afternoon just to get me acquainted with the system. I still didn't know what most of the buttons did, and that worried me.

But there was no time to worry. We ran the procedure twice while we were waiting for additional equipment to arrive: MSDF sailors had to hook up a towing platform to the back of one of the flotilla's destroyers. Once that was done, though, we got underway. It would take almost a full day to go around the Korean Peninsula and reach the crash site. While the ship was en route, we couldn't even practice very much. All we could do was eat, sleep, and wait.

I spent some of my time at a railing above the flight deck. I looked to the horizon and counted the ships I could see. Escort Flotilla 5 had eight ships, but at most, I could make out maybe three or four. The formations were so big that half of the fleet was out of sight. I asked one passing MSDF member about this, and he said that the horizon is only five or ten kilometers away at typical heights. There was a whole fleet beyond the horizon, but it couldn't be seen. It couldn't be seen, yet I knew it was there.

As I looked out over the red ocean, which glimmered in the sunset, I said to the wind,

"Ayanami, are you there?"

The answer came without a missing beat. "I am."

She stood beside me at the railing, but while I leaned on the bars, she kept her distance from the edge.

"What do you need from me?" she asked.

"Nothing," I had to admit, staring over the water. "I was just thinking about things you can't look at but know are there; that's all."

She glanced at me. "I see."

"I was a little hard on you the other day," I went on. "I'm sorry about that."

"You don't need to apologize. You said nothing wrong."

I smiled slightly. "I'm glad you feel that way, but it had to be said. I'm trying to do better now. I'm trying to do right by people—by Nozomi, by you, and by Sasaki." I tapped the metal railing. "I hope this will do right by him."

"Ikari…" She turned to face me, but her eyes wouldn't meet mine.

"What?"

"Ikari, this mission is doomed to fail."

"What? No!" I ran along the railing, forcing myself into her view. "No way. It can't. We've got to save him. We can't leave him down there!"

"You're not prepared for what she can do," said Ayanami.

"Watch us," I said. "I think we're more prepared than you realize."

Ayanami leaned to the side and stared past me. "Are you?"

I followed her gaze and looked over the water.

The water was full of bodies. Pale in color, the red water seeped into their flesh, tinting them pink. The bodies bobbed with the waves that passed by, and the creatures' limbs clawed at the air feverishly.

I blinked. I shut my eyes tight, and when I opened them again, the creatures were gone.

"Your mission is doomed," she said again, "but I can change that."

"How?"

"I need something from you: your courage, your conviction."

I laughed. I put both hands on the railing and looked at the wake beneath us. "I'm not courageous, and my conviction almost got Sasaki killed."

"You tried to be more dedicated to the cause than you knew how to be," said Ayanami, "but you _are_ dedicated. You always were."

"Then what could you possibly need from me?" I asked.

"You," she said. "I need you—to be here."

I stared at her, and she took a step closer.

"I'm sorry." Her eyes turned downcast. "You are a friend, but I stayed away from you. I didn't want her to hurt you, so I hurt you instead."

"You had good reasons…"

"That," she said, "is what I told myself, too. Not anymore." Her eyes came up. "I've missed you, Ikari."

"I missed you, too," I said, putting on a sad smile. "So let's not have that come between us anymore. You can rely on me. Let me stand with you. I know it's a risk, but I'm willing to take it."

Ayanami smiled. "Thank you."

I nodded, and we looked to the ocean for a time, admiring the gradient of colors across the sky as the sun set to our left.

"It is a risk," Ayanami said at last, "but no matter what, I will protect you."

She put her hand on top of mine on the railing. She put her hand there—and I felt it. She pulled my little finger up and slipped her hand underneath.

I jolted. My mouth hung open. "Ayanami—"

But she wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on the sunset. "It hurt to stay away from you," she said, "but if I know you'll have a chance, even that won't hurt me anymore."

I stared at her. I blinked a few times, but no matter how many times I did so, her expression didn't waver.

I raised my hand off the railing a bit, letting her fingers slip into my own. I held Ayanami's hand there, on one of the upper decks of the helicopter destroyer, and I wouldn't let go.

"You don't have to do that," I said. "We're here to save people. We're not here to suffer just so we can feel better about trying."

"I choose this," she said, turning away from the sunset with a wide, radiant smile. "There are things I won't like about it, but it makes me happy."

I squeezed her hand tighter—so tight that my whole body shook. "Please don't do this," I said to her.

Ayanami's smile faded. Her red eyes were cool and determined. "Don't be sad for me, Ikari. When I first chose to do this, I did it for everyone, but everyone couldn't support me. You can." She squeezed my hand back. "And you have. Thank you."

I stopped feeling her. The tension in my hand went away. Her body passed through me again. Once again she was ephemeral and fleeting. She went into a closed steel hatch, and she was gone.

#

I couldn't sleep much that night. I wanted to blame that on the rolling of the ship or the strange cacophony of noises from its bowels, but that wouldn't be true. At least the engines drowned out the wail of blood rushing through my ears.

The next morning, as _Ise_ approached the engagement site, Nozomi took a boat to _Grapple_ , and the rest of us manned our stations in the operations room. I spoke with Misato about the impending operation. I told her I'd spoken with Ayanami—that I knew we weren't ready. The enemy could do so much to hurt us here. Misato put down a folder and sighed.

"We've done all we can," is what she said, and she put on a weak smile. "We've got extra contingents of marines to protect us and Aoba if the enemy try to board the fleet. We've got Russian, Chinese, and US air support. This is the best we can do—the best that can be done. Right now, we have to hope."

"Hope for what?" I demanded.

"That Rei is wrong."

That was like hoping God would mix up a few letters in an eye exam.

#

The operation was underway by noon. Divers from _Grapple_ attached buoys to Unit-14's armor, and with the crane's assistance, the Eva lurched off the ocean floor.

I got on the underwater phone to Sasaki. "Hey, do you feel that?" I asked him. " _Grapple_ should be lifting you up now."

My monitor was blank; the underwater phone didn't have enough bandwidth for a video feed, so I could only read Sasaki's mood from his voice. "Uh, maybe?" he said weakly. "To be honest, I've wanted to throw up for about half an hour now."

"The LCL?" I asked him.

"Yeah. I feel like a vampire."

I grimaced at that. "It'll all be over soon. Just be ready to undo the restraints once the LCL is drained. One thing at a time. Work through the procedure step-by-step, and we'll get you out of there."

"Okay…"

 _Grapple_ brought the Eva back above water. Aoba's team hooked up an improvized clamp to unscrew the entry plug from the Eva's neck while the beast floated face-down behind the ship. Nozomi stood by on _Grapple_ 's deck, plug suit on and ready to go, but just as Aoba's team cracked the entry plug hatch, a thunderous sound boomed over the radio:

CRUNCH!

"What was that?" asked Misato.

 _Ise_ shuddered. Misato caught Hyuga, and the two fell against the central strategy table.

The reports came in from _Grapple_ first: the red ocean had turned to flesh. The bodies of walkers coalesced around the fleet. We were trapped like Cheerios in a packed cereal bowl.

Misato got on the horn with _Ise_ 's captain. "Blow them up if you have to," she told him. "Carve out a path with their blood if we must!"

Oh, they tried. The ships of the flotilla unloaded round after round from their guns. They launched rockets and depth charges to try to break up the fleshy blockade. It "worked," but only in the most marginal sense: any hole made in the layer of bodies was small, and only enough for a ship to move a few meters through. And even in doing that, some of the ships came up with bent or damaged propellers just trying to move through the bodies.

So paralyzed we were that we were sitting ducks for the Angel.

The Disc Angel came for us from the west. It spun horizontally, levitating about 20 meters over the ocean surface. Its yellow-white glow was like a second sun for the morning sky.

And the Angel came with more than just the intent stop us. It came bearing a gift: it turned over and dropped an object toward _Grapple_. A wooden ring, as though fashioned from a bundle of vines, thudded on the deck. The object was about two meters in diameter, with prickly spikes all around.

US Marines and salvage staff aboard _Grapple_ raced to action. They tied some lines around the ring-shaped object and pulled on it with winches, but its spikes dug into the deck. The crew attached plastic explosives to the spikes to shatter them, but that only succeeded in scarring the deck's surface.

"What the hell is going on out there, Ikari?" Nozomi asked at one point, as Aoba's team had stalled trying to get her online. "What's that noise?

"It's just, um, a small explosion."

"An explosion? I'm sitting in a metal can with controls that aren't connected to anything, and there are bombs going off outside?"

"Just sit tight; we're working on it!" I looked to Hyuga. "We're working on it, right?"

Hyuga wasn't even looking at me. His eyes stared right through me as he listened to his headset. I switched channels, and I heard what was happening, too:

The enemy was rising. From the sea of bodies that bobbed with the waves, the white, fleshy walkers scaled the hulls of the fleet's ships. Their needle-like fingers pierced metal, giving them the leverage to crawl up.

The security staff aboard _Grapple_ fired volley after volley toward the water, cutting the beasts down, but for every one that fell, there was another waiting in the water, ready to start climbing anew. They climbed in columns and shrugged off impacts when their comrades above were shot and fell back to the water.

"Get ready to be loaded," I told Nozomi. "We're going to need you as soon as you're able."

As _Grapple_ 's security forces manned the rails, nearby ships worked to clear areas closer to _Grapple_ and shoot into the surrounding waters.

But the Angel would have none of that. The Disc turned its edge to the water and split a Chinese destroyer in two, leaving behind severed compartments and a white-hot metal gash.

I spun around from my station. "Misato, isn't it time yet?" I demanded. "We've got an ace in the hole; now is the time to use it!"

Misato looked to Hyuga. "Is the tarp off?"

"It is, ma'am."

"Launch it."

At that, Hyuga got on the phone. "This is Hyuga in Fleet Operations. Launch."

The destroyer _Makinami_ had towed a barge all the way to the crash site. The ship's crew folded up a blue tarp, revealing a lean, muscular beast in red, black, and white painted armor: Eva Unit-15. On loan from Germany, it was our last hope against an Angel, and we would use it to the fullest. Once the tarp was stowed, Unit-15 sprang into action: it leapt from ship to ship, using an attached jetpack to soften its landings.

The Angel targeted another ship: the Chinese destroyer _Kunming_. Personnel on deck ran inside for cover. Unit-15 jumped over like a veteran track and field star, rocking the ship side to side as it put down on helicopter landing pad.

Veering toward the center of _Kunming_ , the Angel would avoid Unit-15 altogether, but Hyuga relayed an idea to our German liaison:

"If you can get it to target the front part low, just before the leading edge, with an upward blow…"

The liaison seemed to understand; she got on the radio with her German superiors, and sure enough, when the Angel came in—spinning with its edge vertical, Unit-15 dashed over the side, burned its jetpack, and bashed its head on the Disc's face. It headbutted the Angel into a wobbly trajectory, knocking the enemy clear of _Kunming_ and into the pile of bodies beyond.

The creatures in the water paddled and swam franctically to try to push the Disc upright. Gunners on _Kunming_ sprayed them with bullets, and Unit-15 crawled over the side of the ship to get an angle for an attack.

But back on _Grapple_ , the enemy was starting to come over the rails. The marines beat back the enemy with the butts of their rifles when ammunition gave out, and Captain Aoba's staff pulled back from the railings, all working to help lift and guide Nozomi's entry plug into Unit-14.

In the fleet operations room aboard _Ise_ , all I could do was wait. Nozomi wasn't up and running yet, but I was still anxious. "Isn't there any way to speed this up?" I asked Hyuga.

"We'll stick to the essential checklist," he told me. "We'll get her out there."

That was looking less and less likely each second. The walkers got a foothold on one corner of the crane platform, and though _Grapple_ sent a handful of men with shotguns to push the enemy back, the aft platform with Unit-14 degenerated into a close-quarters melee.

"Okay!" I heard Aoba cry out over the radio. "One last push, let's go!"

They screwed the plug into place in the Eva; the covering neck plate closed, and the enemy overwhelmed the defenders, piercing their heads and forcibly dissolving them. Aoba and his colleagues took up arms to defend themselves, but single shots from pistols were no match for the enemy: they shrugged off the blows and routed the whole team.

"Nozomi!" I cried. "Are you good to go? You need to get out of there!"

"I don't have control yet!" The entry plug was still dark; she moved the control levers uselessly.

"Remote restart procedure," ordered Hyuga. "How much time?"

"Fifteen seconds!" said another controller.

My eyes focused on the reflection of a light in the monitor, but that's all that was there. I closed my right hand into a fist.

The enemy overran _Grapple_ 's deck. They liquefied the marines and Aoba's team, but they ignored the Eva. They went instead for the ring-shaped object whose spikes stuck in the deck of _Grapple_. The creatures grabbed those spikes, and their arms morphed and softened like putty. They merged with the object, and though they remained connected to it, they came back for the Eva. They came back, and they stabbed at the seams in the Eva's helmet, planting thorny, wooden protrusions.

From those thorns grew vines, bonding the Eva to the ring-shaped object.

The Eva stood up.

"Ikari, I don't have control," said Nozomi. "It's moving on its own; what's going on?"

The fleet operations room was silent.

The vines contracted, bringing the ring-shaped object to the Eva's head.

And the Eva went to work. It jumped clear across the flotilla to _Kunming_. The added weight pushed the ship down to where its waterline was just below its railings. Unit-14 tackled the German Eva, and the two fought over the aft landing pad. Unit-14 was vicious in its blows, slugging it out with the leaner, but also lighter, Unit-15 in a nasty brawl. It beat the mask off Unit-15, yanked off the legplates, and stomped on Unit-15's chest.

"Fight it, Nozomi!" I insisted. "You have to do something!"

"I can't!" She slapped the controls and yanked on them as hard as he could. The levers gave no resistance. It was though they weren't connected to anything at all.

Outside the fleet operations room, gunshots rang out. The rhythmic beats of shotgun blasts echoed through the corridors.

My eyes lost focus. "Ayanami," I said, staring past the monitor, "we need you."

"I'm here."

She appeared, in the reflection of the monitor. I turned to face her, and her image was only slightly more real—translucent and expressionless she was, but she was there.

"Ayanami," I said, "I think you might be right."

"Are you?" Another voice interrupted. "You're willing to leave her to this?"

The hooded stranger—she stood on the opposite side of the command table, and she approached, not minding Misato and Hyuga's bodies that were in the way: she passed right through them (to Misato's visible irritation). She kept her gaze fixed on me, despite the hood covering her eyes.

"She puts her trust in you again." The stranger cocked her head. "It was foolish the first time; it's no smarter now. She still wants to be here." The stranger looked to Ayanami. "This is an act of false hope, Lilith: false hope for you, false hope for your children. You would only make it more difficult for both of us."

"They're capable of more than you give them credit for," said Ayanami. "You're afraid of what they can do."

The stranger hissed at that. "You're afraid, too." The stranger faced me again. "How much of your friendship have you missed out on? How much more do you stand to lose this way? You can't let her condemn herself to this fate. That would be a betrayal of everything you have together."

I slammed a fist on the console. "The only person who ever betrayed her is you! You betrayed what she stood for; you betrayed what you all stood for! And for what? To destroy us?"

The stranger looked to me, and her lips curled in exasperation. "Destroy you?" she echoed. "Please. I am freeing you from Lilith's misconceptions, from her misguided beliefs. You of all people know what pain is like. You know that the dream she intends for you is impossible. See the futility of what you strive for. See it—and let go."

"It is not futile." Ayanami stepped between us, staring down the enemy. "And they will show you that, not me."

I stepped around her, trying to catch her gaze. "Ayanami—"

"Ikari." She smiled for me. She smiled so gently, yet it was a full smile, too—full and without reservation. "Thank you," she said, "but now, I must break a promise."

Shuddering, I couldn't bear to look at her for long. "I—I know."

Ayanami nodded at me, and she fixed her eyes on the enemy. She raised a hand to the stranger, and she brought it down with the force of a hammer.

And there was a shattering. The world shattered, and my heart went along with it.

The shards left behind were images of Ayanami and the stranger, scattered images that reflected them in various stages of conflict. Ayanami and the stranger traded blows. Those surreal still frames littered the operations room. Ayanami and the stranger punched, grabbed, and kicked at one another in endless positions and combinations.

The camera on Unit-14 showed the same. All over the ocean and the deck of _Kunming_ , these ghastly images lingered.

And with those images in the background, the day was saved. Unit-14 collapsed in a heap. The walkers liquefied. LCL seeped under the operations room hatch. The Disc Angel spun itself out of the water and flew a wobbling course away.

Ayanami did something great for us that day. She found something inside her that she didn't know she had before—not when she was searching for meaning all those years ago, not even at the Horaki home two days before. I don't know what she found, but I know that she'd been striving to be a little more than what she'd been. And she accomplished that.

She accomplished that and was happy for it. I knew that to be true because, when I looked at those supernatural images of Ayanami and the stranger, there was one thing abundantly clear:

Ayanami always had a smile on her face.


	11. To Become One

**To Become One**  
 _Chapter Eleven_

"Okay, Nozomi, are you ready?" I said.

At my station in the control room, I flipped through a binder. The main projector screens flickered, showing the Black Moon that hovered over the Indian Ocean.

The craft was not unguarded: the Disc Angel and others, of various shapes and sizes, patrolled outside it. They had good reason to: an armada surrounded the craft in turn. Prime among the armada was the helicopter destroyer _Ise_ , which carried Evangelion Unit-14 on the aft landing pad.

Nozomi and the entry plug were shown on the third, rightmost screen in the control room. She gripped and released the actuation levers, staring out at the scene before her, and she said,

"I dunno, can we go over the plan once we break in one more time?"

I sighed. "Yeah, sure, all right. Let's pause it."

The images froze. Waves stopped mid-break against _Ise_ 's hull. The Disc Angel sat tilted in mid-air as it dove toward the armada.

In the control room, some of the controllers backed away from their stations, stretching and drinking coffee or tea.

I paged through the binder, going to a middle section. "Okay, what's on your mind?"

"Finding the target once we're inside," said Nozomi. "I was just thinking we don't have enough material in the plan for a search."

I looked to Major Hyuga at the adjacent station. He looked over an identical blue binder and shook his head. "That's not her job. People on the ground will have to identify the target's location."

"Nothing she can do to help with that?" I asked.

"Nothing we're sure of. Let's focus on phase one. None of that stuff matters if we don't make it inside."

I relayed this to Nozomi, and Nozomi agreed to continue. "All right," she said, "let's give it a shot."

The simulation resumed. _Ise_ steamed toward the Disc Angel at full speed, and Unit-14 engaged the enemy. It hopped between towed platforms, punching the enemy before flying away thanks to bursts of thrust from its jetpack.

"Take it easy," I told her. "You're burning a lot of fuel here. Quick, short bursts."

"I don't think I can reach the center that way," said Nozomi. "You want me to go for the edges?"

"Yeah, let's try that this round and see how it goes."

And so, we went on. Ayanami was gone. The hooded stranger was gone, but her children and the Angels were still there, and so were we.

The pawns were left to fight while the queens had abandoned the board.

#

It'd been nearly a week since Ayanami left us.

We'd left the Yellow Sea with the images of Ayanami and the stranger still haunting the operations room of _Ise_ —an eternal reminder of the war between them.

The stranger's children around the world had liquefied, retreating to the Black Moon in the Indian Ocean to regroup. The remaining Angels had left their battlefields as well, with the Disc Angel hovering around the Black Moon as its final protector.

We began to plot the siege of the Black Moon—the final operation to remove the Angel and alien threat from Earth—but we had no plan for the future. What would we do then? How would we get that Geofront off our planet?

That was the thing with everyone else—Misato, Hyuga, and the others. They were so focused on what was right in front of them that they couldn't look beyond it. Even if we beat our enemies, that wouldn't mean we'd done all we'd hoped to. The enemy had made a real mess of the world, and just killing them or driving them back to their craft wouldn't fix any of that.

So it'd be a mistake—a real mistake—to be satisfied with just defeating them.

We had find the stranger. We had to make her give Ayanami back.

But no one else on the base was thinking about that, let alone had a plan. All they thought about was battle plans and exercises, about forming armadas and integrated command structures and whatever else.

So I did.

When exercises were done for the day, I grabbed a quick bite to eat and went back to my office in search of the answer. I paged through the insane ramblings of Keel Lorenz and his Seele disciples. I dug through the old Nerv archives—the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ritsuko's research, all of it. If there were information about Lilith and her people, it had to be in there, right?

But not everyone would leave me alone to that. As I studied some documents on the Spear of Longinus, there was a knock on my door, from Captain Aoba, of all people.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said, drumming his fingers on a manilla folder. "I just had some recommendations for future Eva testing. I thought you might want to know, in case we need you and Nozomi for the test."

I waved him over to my desk, and I took a look at the contents of the folder. Most of it had to do with trying to remove fragments of the Crown of Thorns from the Eva; Aoba wanted to run some live exercises to make sure the Eva was fully functional again. The artifact the enemy had used to take control of the Eva—the Crown of Thorns—had occupied all of Aoba's time in the past week and kept Unit-14 out of commission while they removed it.

"I'll pass it along to Hyuga; that's his call," I told him.

"Ah, I see," said Aoba, who furrowed his brow. "I guess I'm still a little out of sorts."

As could be expected—being liquefied by those creatures and trying to reconstitute yourself had a tendency to scramble your brain a bit.

"Are you feeling all right?' I asked.

"Fine, fine." He laughed. "Once you've been there once, what's another trip to the ocean, right? We're all fine." He picked up the folder from my desk and shot me a look. "What about you?"

I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Are you doing all right—since Lilith left us?"

"Ayanami," I said, glancing at the Spear of Longinus blueprints again.

"Ah." Aoba frowned. "Right," he said at last. "So you're doing well?"

"Fine," I said, smiling. "Just fine. Ayanami…did what she needed to do for our sake. I'm sad she's gone. She deserved more, but we're still here, and we need to keep going. And we'll find a way to bring her back."

"That's good to hear," said Aoba, nodding. "I'm glad to hear that. Some of us have been worried."

I slid the computer mouse aside, looking at him. "Worried about what?"

"A friend of yours—a friend of all of us—is gone. As far as any of us know, there's no way to save her. She might not even know we're still alive."

"She knows," I said, staring at him. "Ayanami knows, and she knows we're looking for her."

"Maybe you are," he said, "but the general isn't. The major isn't. Maybe we can save mankind. She'll still have sacrificed herself."

"You don't know that."

"That's all we're doing here—sacrificing ourselves for others' sake." He put a hand on his chest. "You, me, everyone—we're all giving a little bit of ourselves, but who says we have to suffer like that?" He glanced at the monitor. "How much are you going to give up to fix what happened?"

I tilted the monitor away from him. "As much as I choose to," I said. "I'm sorry about what happened to you, but don't you have something else to do?"

"I wonder, though," he said, "let's say we get through this but Rei is gone and won't come back: is that worth it? Is that worth all of this just to stay out of the ocean?"

"Get out," I said.

"Is that worth staying out of the ocean where none of this would even hurt?"

"Get out!"

Eyes narrowed, he gave me a slight nod, and he walked out.

I didn't blame Aoba for questioning things. I'd been there before. I don't think I reacted much better, all those months before, when I first confronted those creatures up-close.

But Aoba's doubts weren't my problem. I had too much material in front of me: Seele R&D, manifestos, and so on. I could spend weeks combing through their writings.

I could spend weeks and not find anything of value, not accomplish anything. These reams and reams of documents would be spokes of a hamster wheel: I'd run through them and go nowhere.

#

I started asking questions about our plans going forward. What would we do if the enemy forces were defeated? What were we going to do about the second Black Moon over the Indian Ocean?

What could be done, if anything, to bring Ayanami back?

"What—did she go somewhere?" was Misato's remark. "Do we need to send a taxi?"

That's what she said when I visited her office. She shook her head, looking to the ceiling, and sighed. The point was well-taken: it wasn't as easy as just going to fetch her from someplace. Where Ayanami had gone—or where she could be found—weren't easy questions to answer.

"We'll take the Black Moon," said Misato, "and we'll capture the head of the snake. If there's a way to get Rei back, she'll know."

But whether she would tell us, even knew anything, or would relent to help us was something neither of us could know. We were trapped in that, in miserable uncertainty with no way out. I suggested we interrogate Keel Lorenz, but Misato just laughed.

" _We_ are interrogating no one," she said. "My people are taking care of that. You're not a trained interrogator. You'd give him as much information as you'd get, if you even got anything at all."

"So, what am I supposed to do?" I demanded.

She cocked her head at that. "Shinji, some things aren't entirely in our control. There might not be anything you can do about Rei right now. That's reality."

Reality sucked.

"But there _are_ things you can contribute to in the here and now," said Misato. "The enemy is still out there. The Angels are still out there."

So what. We'd kill them, or we'd pack them all up in the craft they arrived in and send them back. Then something else would come hurtling from the cosmos, or maybe some archaeologists would dig up another Geofront, or Godzilla would rise from the ocean. On and on we go. Cataclysm is always just around the corner. There's no salvation on the horizon—only the people we bury and trample underfoot in search of it.

The thing is, I knew that wasn't a healthy attitude to hold. It wasn't something I liked or embraced, but it was the only thing I felt capable of holding in my heart at the time. Misato was right—keeping up with Nozomi mattered—but I just didn't have it in me to feel it rewarding. I couldn't find a meaning in it that I liked.

But once Misato and others pointed out the futility of my search, I couldn't go back to what I'd been doing, either. I'd learned a lot about Seele's inner workings in the previous week, but even Seele didn't know that much about Lilith—about who she was, where she came from, or the group of seven. What they did know was cloaked in quasi-religious nonsense, identifying Adam and Lilith with figures from Jewish folklore. None of it really meant anything.

Rather than spend the rest of the day on that waste of time, I did something more for myself: I read a book, _A Tale of Two Cities_.

It wasn't the first time I'd read it; I'd once given Ayanami a copy for a school assignment, and she took to the piece. She read it cover-to-cover in a day or two, and she kept the copy on her for a long time. I used to wonder what she enjoyed about the story: I feared the moments of human brutality would offend her, but there was definitely something about the story she liked.

So I read the Dickens novel again. I read, and I remembered things I'd forgotten. A lot of people reinvent themselves in that book. The spy, Barsad, assumes different roles based on who's in power. Darnay sheds his aristocratic background to live a quiet life. Doctor Manette is reborn on his release from prison, only to die again for periods of time as he relapses into his obsessive shoe-making.

I think Ayanami would've appreciated, maybe even enjoyed, the idea that people can change so fully and completely. She'd done it before, and she would do it again.

As nice a diversion as that was, reading a book would only do so much. I ate dinner late, by myself, and I headed back to my quarters with Asuka. It was half past nine at that point, and Asuka was on the bed, in shorts and bare feet, as she worked on her laptop.

"Been busy?" she said, hardly looking up from the screen.

"I've been…looking into things," I told her. "And thinking."

"Yeah?" she said, peering up. "What about?"

I sighed, and I took the chair at the desk, sitting down backward to face her. "We're not getting her back."

"Aha." Asuka closed her laptop, and she leaned back against a pillow and the headboard. "It doesn't seem likely, does it?" she said. It was more of a statement than a question.

"No." I flicked a finger at the desk's edge. "I didn't want to believe it, but that's how it is. And everything we're doing is about going _forward_."

"Yourself included?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"First's gone, but you've been halfway locked inside the control room or your office ever since," she said.

"I'm not running away from this," I said, frowning. "Not after what Ayanami did. How could I?"

Asuka smiled at that, and she waved me over. "Shinji, come here."

I stared blankly.

"I'm not going to bite," she said, laughing. "Get over here."

I got up and pushed the chair back into place. I lay down next to Asuka, and she wrapped an arm around me.

"I'm proud of you, you know," she said. "But I don't think anyone would have a problem if you took a day to yourself. She was your friend. Take the time to grieve. I didn't do that when Mama left me, and I didn't realize until much later how much weight that left inside me. Don't do that to yourself."

I sighed. "I don't know. There's so much going on—"

"Shinji, you need to lean on people sometimes," she said, pointing a finger at me. "It doesn't have to be me—but I won't complain if it is. You put up with a lot of my shit. Give me a chance to be there now and then."

"You have been," I said, closing my eyes in her warm embrace. "You have."

"Thanks." She squeezed me a bit. "Now, at least take the morning tomorrow. Get outside this hole. I'll take care of Nozomi's session. Agreed?"

I opened my eyes and stared—stared at the gray ceiling that was bathed in the cold, blue-tinted lights of the room. "Okay."

"Good," she said. "That's good."

Asuka tried really hard. She tried so hard to help me, but being comfortable in someone's arms—that can do only so much.

It's hard to feel good when you think you don't deserve that. Someone else can't feel that anymore, so why should you?

It's hard to feel good when nothing you can do would really change the situation you're in. When every option is equally pointless, why do anything at all? Taking time to myself might help me let go, but it wouldn't really improve anything—nothing except what was in my own head.

People we love go away in time. We die, and if science has anything to say about it, we don't go anywhere after that. We fall asleep, never to reawaken. Why bother trying to live, then? Why bother doing things? They won't amount to anything. The people we touch with our lives—the people we influence—will only die in turn. The stuff we did will be forgotten and lost. In time, there will be no evidence we ever existed at all.

Maybe that's when I finally understood my mother. The chance to make something immortal and everlasting—the chance to do something meaningful in that it could never be erased—did appeal to me, at least in that time. It was something of real consequence. My father and I could never be that.

At the same time, I was still alive. I was still alive, and I had no interest in dying. But what is there to keep going for? Ayanami's wish? The promise I'd just made to Asuka? Something else?

I spoke to Asuka about that question, and just like always, she had an answer right away.

"Why do you think she did it?" she asked me.

I didn't know.

"She had to know she'd die," Asuka argued, "or something worse. She gave up a lot, didn't she?"

"She was always like that," I remarked.

"But she felt it was worth it. She must've felt that way. It mattered to her that we'd still be here, that we'd still have the chance to go on."

"Was it really worth that, though?" I said, sighing and looking to the ceiling.

"It was worth it to her."

And that's the only thing that mattered, isn't it? As long as it was worth it to Ayanami, who were we to judge that? We do things for people, for other people, that might not directly benefit us, but we can still take joy in them. We can still find happiness in that.

"We should get married," I told Asuka.

Asuka sputtered, showing me a bemused look. "Are you serious?"

"Of course."

"You're incredible sometimes, Shinji," she said, shaking her head. "But you know, we can't right now."

"Why's that?"

"You have to be eighteen."

I huffed at that. "Well, in two years then."

"Yeah, two years."

We lay there for some time, and I fell asleep in Asuka's arms. I'm not sure exactly when.

#

The next morning, despite my uneasiness, I left the base to pay my respects to Ayanami.

I set out for Minamiashigara around seven o'clock from the train station in downtown Tokyo-2. I'd been invited there a few times before, but I'd never visited—not since the end of Instrumentality. When they were holding the dedication for the monument, I was still in my reclusive phase. I didn't want to be seen in public. I knew Minamiashigara well, though.

It was the place where Asuka and I left the sea.

The town had been been rebuilt since those days. The rising of the Geofront from Tokyo-3—just 10 kilometers away—had carved out a new beach on the town's south side and widened Odawara Bay. When Asuka and I had first returned to the world of the living, we'd found most of the seaside property smashed and broken—likely from the initial tidal wave after the Geofront rose. Given two years to rebuild, the town had laid out a new road along the south shore, dotted with beachside homes. More than half of them were still for sale, though. The beach there wasn't much to look at, either, with rocks going right to the water's edge. It would take a few thousand years or more to weather that into sand, I'm sure.

The freshly-paved road led to the monument.

The monument park charged no admission unless you wanted a guided tour, but you still had to get a ticket. The government had been savvy enough to offer me lifetime admission, though, so I showed the person at the counter my pass, and he let me through.

The central area of the monument was a concrete dais. Three statues in black marble stood equally spaced around the platform: one of Ayanami, one of Asuka, and one of me. The statues were life-sized, and I would've stood a little taller than my stone counterpart if not for the statue's base. As uncomfortable as it was to look at myself that way, I did like the statue. The artist captured something about _that boy_ —his uncertainty, his vulnerability, his anger? I wasn't quite sure. Those black stony eyes were hard to read. But it did, at least, feel like me at a different time.

Behind each of the three statues were stone slabs, engraved with the names of those who had not yet returned from Instrumentality. Fittingly, my parents' names were listed on the slab behind my statue. I took a moment to find them among the other names—some of whom had dates next to them, showing they eventually had returned—and I moved on.

From the stone dais, a staircase led to the ocean. The Walk of Life was meant to offer a path for those returning from Instrumentality, but that day, I stopped at the top step and looked over Odawara Bay. In the distance, one eye stared back at me—an eye on Lilith's petrified head. Only half of the head was still intact, and it sat knee-deep in the water. A ring of buoys was meant to keep people from touching it or trying to snap off a souvenir.

I headed down the steps, rolled up my pant legs, and waded to the buoy line. The head was enormous—four men could've stood on each other's shoulders and still not reached the top—and its expression was equally haunting, for even in death, the petrified face wore an open-mouthed smile.

As the waves lapped up to my knees, I craned my head to look up, and I said to no one in particular,

"This isn't goodbye, you know. That would be too sad."

I balled my fists at my sides. I was shaking; the water was cool and uncomfortable.

"But until I find you again," I went on, "I'll try to keep going like this."

The stone face didn't move. It stared blankly across the breach with its small smile.

"Thanks," I said to it, and I waded back to the shore.

If it came down to just Ayanami versus all of mankind having the chance to live outside of Instrumentality, then it was a simple decision. Ayanami knew that, and so did I, but that didn't make it any less unsatisfying. Ayanami might have found peace or happiness through what she'd done, but some of that peace came at the cost of my grief, too. Trying to be happy for her sake felt more like an obligation than something I really wanted to do. I would've liked it better if she'd been there. The challenge was to realize in my heart that it just couldn't be so.

Those heavy thoughts weighed on me as I trudged up the Walk of Life to the monument dais, but as I reached the halfway point of the stair, the wind picked up. There was a low thumping sound. Helicopter rotors sliced through the air. A military chopper came down on the road outside the museum. Three SDF members disembarked: Captain Suzuki and two of her men.

My satellite phone rang.

"Hello, Shinji?" It was Hyuga. "Asuka's going to be on the line in a moment. There's been an incident here."

Captain Suzuki and her men walked toward me.

"What happened?" I asked. "Is she all right?"

"We think she's fine. The control room—she's coming on now."

There was a clicking sound, and Asuka was next to speak. "Hey, Shinji? It's me. I'm all right."

Suzuki and her men stopped in front of me. "You need to come with us, sir," she said. "You're needed at the base immediately."

I covered the phone. "What's going on?" I demanded.

"Shinji?" said Asuka on the phone. "Are you there?"

"I'm here!" I answered. I pulled on my hair. "Are you sure you're all right? Talk to me!"

"I'm fine. Everybody here is fine. One of Maya's people was grazed; that's all."

"Grazed?" My blood ran cold. "Grazed by what?"

There was some static. A distant voice broke in. "That's enough," the male voice said.

"Hey, I'm not done; hey!" More static.

"Asuka?" I cried, hunching over the phone. "Asuka!"

The line went dead.

#

Captain Aoba had taken over the control room.

Asuka had started on the procedures for simulated exercises when Aoba and his people entered the control room. He pretended that he wanted to discuss the Eva's limitations after having removed the Crown of Thorns and repaired the damage from being submerged for so long. That was just a ruse: he and his men were already armed. There had been a brief firefight, with one of Maya's staff grazed in the action. After that, Misato's men had taken positions outside the control room doors. Aoba's people had disabled those doors and disconnected the interior cameras.

Aoba's demands were simple: collapse the launch chute and destroy Unit-14. "This war costs everyone too much," he said over the phone. "We're the ones killing people; they're not. Put a stop to this, General! Just let it be!"

We were in the briefing hall, which Hyuga had hastily converted into a command center for the emergency. Misato sat at the bottom of the bowl with the speakerphone in front of her, and when Aoba made that remark, she put him on mute and sneered. "Yes, sure, we should accept being crippled because that at least doesn't kill anyone!" she remarked, but when she unmuted the phone, her tone was more diplomatic. "All right, Aoba," she said, "if we're going to cooperate, we need a mutual show of good faith—a number of hostages for each concrete act you ask of us. Agreed?"

"Seal the launch chute, and I will release half of the hostages," said Aoba.

Misato put two fingers to her temple. "Wouldn't you like to divide this down to something a little finer? Putting so much leverage on a single act increases the risk for both of us."

"Those are my terms," he said, and he hung up.

Misato picked up the phone and slammed it back on the base to hang up in turn, and she rattled off instructions for Hyuga. "Find a way to launch the Eva without him knowing," she said. "Divert every camera, sensor, and radio to the secondary control room. Assume he has people on the outside looking to funnel him information or sabotage our efforts. Do not let him harm even any more of our people, Hyuga."

Hyuga nodded, and he doled out assignments to the remaining officers and staff. We were to set up in the secondary control room. The base's eyes, ears, and voice would be reconnected there, leaving Aoba with false feeds and dummy radio traffic.

With Hyuga's instructions given, we filed out of the auditorium, but I lingered at the back of the crowd. I ducked into the restroom, turned the cold faucet all the way open, and splashed some water on my face. I leaned on the sink counter with both hands, and I bowed my head.

I'd spoken to Ayanami in a restroom like that one—not that exact one, but they had the same layout: the same cool, blue-white lights; the same cream-colored, plastic countertops. She made an appeal to me in that place. And then she was gone.

I'd spoken to Asuka in the briefing hall before. I'd been sitting right next to her when she sold Misato and Hyuga on the idea of the puncture engine. That was some weeks before. How amazing it was to realize things could change so quickly. If Aoba or one of his men got jumpy, she could be gone just as fast as Ayanami left us.

There was a knock at the restroom door, and it creaked open. "Somebody in there?" asked Misato. "I was banging someone earlier and forgot my panties. Do you mind?"

I huffed, not looking at her. "You're not funny."

"I disagree," she said, stepping inside. "This is my base, and it's a standing order that I'm funny."

I sighed at that. "Don't you have something to do?"

"We both do." She put a hand on my shoulder, and we faced the mirror together. "How are you holding up?"

"It's Asuka in there," I said. "How do you think I'm holding up?"

"She needs you now." Misato rubbed my shoulder. "You up for it?"

I looked away. "I'll try." My eyes snapped back to meet her gaze. "Don't let them take her, Misato. Don't let them take anyone else."

Misato leaned to the side and kissed my temple. "There's not a chance of that," she said. "We're getting Asuka back."

I nodded and let out a breath, and we headed to the backup control room.

#

Technicians and support staff still had work to do in the backup control room, hooking it up with live feeds and radio systems. I had to log into an unfamiliar station and get my credentials entered for the communications loop. All that work took time—time we didn't have. My chair felt uneven and sat too high, but the lever on its side didn't seem to work properly. The backup control room was cramped, with only half the stations the main one had. In some areas, two or three controllers shared a single station. The lighting was flaky, with one overhead light going in and out ever few seconds. The room was far from perfect, but it would have to do.

I got on the line with Nozomi, who had been loaded into Unit-14. If Aoba wanted us to close the launch chute and trap the Eva inside, we had to do everything we could to get the Eva into the open and free. Nozomi had suited up for the most unusual operation we'd ever considered.

"So, have we got something like a harness to support me?" asked Nozomi. "You guys sent an Eva into a volcano. You have to have a plan for this."

I looked to Hyuga. "Don't count on it," he said.

"Sorry," I told Nozomi, "we'll have to worry about what we can control. I know it's tough."

"Well, for Soryu's sake…" Nozomi sighed. "Let's get this done, right? We got a checklist?"

"Just the essentials," I said, "and thanks."

"'course."

We worked through the quick launch checklist. While most of the basic tests passed, Nozomi felt that the Eva was stiff and sluggish. Some of that was expected: the Crown of Thorns had damaged the Eva's nervous system, and even though our people had excised the artifact, the damage would take time to heal—more time than we had. We were concerned that the loss of motor function could affect the Eva's ascent, but we didn't have many other options. If the proper safeguards were taken on the way up, the Eva still had a good chance of making it out of the launch chute, but if Nozomi felt she simply didn't have adequate control, it would be on her to abort. Actually launching the Eva was out of the question: the primary control room would detect that, whether through sensors in the launch elevators or by the power flowing to the electromagnets within. We had no choice but to make Nozomi climb the whole way to the surface.

The tricky part wasn't the climb, either: it was deceiving Aoba into thinking we were giving in to his demands while betraying him. As Nozomi scaled the chute, pulling the Eva up by nooks and crannies in the carved-out rock, Misato ordered sealing doors shut, cutting Nozomi off from the base beneath her. Aoba was wise to this, though; he wanted Misato to close the topmost sealing door, ensuring Eva-14 couldn't escape.

Misato and Hyuga deliberated about what to do there. Could the Eva break through the top sealing door on its own? And do so without collapsing the launch chute structure? They decided it was worth the risk. They closed one last sealing door behind Unit-14 as well as the topmost one. Nozomi and Unit-14 climbed on with only the glow of orange emergency lights to guide her upward.

With the shaft doors shut, Misato made her counter-demands: Aoba was to release half the hostages, including Asuka. The other half would be for removing and destroying the Eva's core.

Aoba refused. He felt that merely closing the doors wasn't enough. He demanded that we weld them together to ensure they couldn't be opened remotely.

"What does he want us to do—find an Eva-sized blowtorch?" said Misato, incredulous. She turned to the communications controller. "If we decline to do that without a release of hostages," she asked, "what will he do?"

The controller passed that along and said, "He says he'll liquefy hostages one at a time until we comply."

Misato and Hyuga weren't sure what to make of that. Could Aoba have smuggled one of the walkers in without us noticing? How else could they forcibly liquefy someone? Did they have some other technique?

Whatever the answers, Misato decided it was a moot point. It seemed that Aoba had no intention of releasing the hostages incrementally as a show of good faith.

"We're going ahead," Misato decided, coming down the aisle to stand near Hyuga and me. "Break the launch chute door open. Our people will go in on the first crack."

I glanced at the front projector screens. On one screen was the view from the Eva as it climbed the chute. On the next was a millimeter-wave image of the primary control room. In grayscale, Aoba's men manned the control room stations, with only a small handful standing guard. The control room staff sat underneath their desks. Try as I might, I couldn't get a clear glimpse of Asuka: the grayscale figures were recognizable as people, but without true color, clothing, or hair.

"Shinji," said Hyuga, "you need to let her know."

I flinched. "Right! Sorry." I pushed the transmit switch on my headset cord. "Okay, Nozomi, we're going to have you break down the chute door."

"You sure, Ikari?" Nozomi looked at the entry plug camera. "Feels like I'm fighting through soup here, like I'm drawing something but somebody keeps yammering away while I'm trying to concentrate."

Unit-14 pulled itself up on a niche in the rocky chute, but its fingers slipped, and the Eva flailed to regain its grip.

"Can't hold on to anything right now," muttered Nozomi.

"It might be interference from the core," I told her. "We might have to just push through it."

"Okay, just give me the word."

I looked to Hyuga, but he was pressing a finger to his ear. "Major?" I said.

"Tell her to stand by," he said. "There are reports of a security breach elsewhere on base. We need to assess the situation."

I gestured to the front screen. "Nozomi can't hang there forever."

And Aoba's people weren't going to wait forever, either. There was activity inside the primary control room. Aoba's goons went back and forth between distant stations. They used office chairs as improvised cover, and all we could do was watch them run about like actors in a silent film.

"General," said Hyuga, "Aoba's people clearly believe that a confrontation is imminent. If we're going to strike, the time is now."

Misato frowned, tapping a pencil on her desk. "Shinji, do you think Nozomi can break through—despite the trouble she's having with the Eva?"

I watched the front screen. Aoba's men drew their guns.

"Yes," I said. "Absolutely."

"Then make the call," said Misato.

I relayed the instructions to Nozomi, who—despite her unsteady grip on the rocks—pulled the Eva to the bottom of the chute door. Resting its shoulder on a ledge, the Eva drew its prog knife and started cutting.

On the front projector screen, SDF security teams barged into the primary control room, and just as the door opened, the footage went dead.

"Misato!" I cried, turning back to look at her.

She held up a hand. "These things take time," she said.

And time doesn't care how impatient you are.

The minutes ticked away in the backup control room. The air circulation system spat cool air at my neck. The computers hummed and beeped. On the screen, Nozomi sliced through the launch chute door and pried it open. Unit-14 emerged in the midday sun on Hachibuse Mountain outside Tokyo-2, and as the minutes passed, Nozomi guided the Eva on a stroll of sorts. She had nothing better to do, after all.

Hyuga had gone to Misato's station to observe and monitor the situation. Make no mistake: they were watching. They could see what was going on. They just didn't want _me_ watching.

But after a time, Misato let out a breath and sat back in her chair. "Shinji," she said, "Hyuga will take over for you with Nozomi. Get up to the primary control room. Asuka's waiting for you."

My heart skipped a beat. I fumbled with my headset, getting the cord caught around my fingers. I ran out of the backup control room and scampered across the base to the primary control room's building. I ran so fast I lost my footing trying to turn a corner and banged my hand against an exposed pipe, but I shook it off and kept going. When I got to the control room, it didn't even hurt.

The scene there was confused and chaotic: infirmary staff had priority getting in and out. A line of controllers left the area under the supervision of a pair of medics. Base security guarded the doors closely, keeping me at a safe distance.

Then, at the end of the line, came Asuka. She had a medic personally attending to her; the side of her face had swelled up, and she was holding a compress to her cheek to dull the inflammation.

"Asuka!" I cried, and I ran to her—despite the guards' protests. Asuka wrapped an arm around me, cradling the compress and her face with the other.

"I'm all right," she said. "The Eva—did they—"

"No, we got Nozomi and the Eva out," I said.

"Did you now?" From inside the control room came the voice of Captain Aoba. He and his men lay face down between the cubicles, cuffed with cable ties. The SDF officers standing over them wielded tasers, and two leads stuck in Aoba's back. "You got the Eva out?" he said weakly. "Good for you."

Two SDF members dragged Aoba to his feet, and as they walked him out, I called to him.

"How could you do this?" I said. "We worked on this for so long. Why?"

Aoba froze me with a glance. The stare in his eyes was distant and haunting. "I've seen what could happen to us," he said. "They showed me when they took me to the sea this time. We can't let that happen. Have you thought about what would happen next? No you haven't. I know it." The SDF members began to drag him away. "That's all right," Aoba concluded. "None of that matters anymore."

As the security team walked Aoba and his henchmen to holding cells, Asuka and I lingered behind. One of the medics stepped in, saying that Asuka should go to the infirmary to get checked out, but I wasn't watching. I stared as Aoba and the others went down the hall.

"Asuka," I said, "are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah? I should be fine. Just got hit by a wussy punch; that's all. I should be back to work—"

I kissed her on the lips for just a moment, enough to quiet her, and I waved goodbye. "You rest!" I called out as I started down the hall. "Listen to the doctors! I'll check back later; I need to see Nozomi."

"Shinji? What's going on?"

I headed back to the backup control room at a brisk pace. For a man who'd been tased and defeated in his plan to shut down the Eva, Aoba had been a little too calm about things. Our mistakes soon wouldn't matter? The plot to invade the Black Moon hadn't even been launched.

More importantly, the man who had cleared the Eva for testing—for relaunch—was none other than Aoba. If he'd wanted to shut the Eva down, he'd had more than ample opportunity to do it right under our noses.

When I returned to the backup control room, I explained my reasoning to Hyuga and Misato. We needed to get Unit-14 back in the cage for testing; we should scour every last square centimeter of its body until we were confident Aoba had done nothing to sabotage it. They agreed, and they had me call Nozomi back.

We raised the launch elevator to the top of the chute, but when it arrived there, Unit-14 wouldn't move.

"Ikari, I don't have control here," said Nozomi, pushing on the actuation levers. "The whole thing's gumming up again, just like—"

The Eva shook and recoiled. An appendage grew out of its forehead: a thorny vine. It formed a ring across the Eva's six eyes and ran tendrils along the Eva's limbs like the strings of a puppet.

And they invaded the entry plug, too. Tiny roots crept inside around the entry plug hatch. They yanked Nozomi from her seat, stringing her up on a cross of thorns.

"Nozomi…" I rose from my seat, mouth agape. "Nozomi, can you move at all? Can you do anything?"

"Now, now, Shinji Ikari—you should know better," said a voice from inside the plug. "Eva has a will of its own. Those who dare try to control our precursors' flesh shall be dominated in turn."

Keel Lorenz. He was there—inside the entry plug with Nozomi. He swam freely, and he sat on top of the actuation levers' mount, in front of Nozomi, who stared back at him in fright and horror.

"My thanks for allowing me and the Eva to reach the surface," said Lorenz with a mocking nod. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we must bring about paradise once more."

The Eva took a halting foot forward.

And then another.

And another still.

And it brushed aside the trees as though they were saplings to a bear.

#

It took the next few hours to piece together what had happened—and how we were deceived.

Aoba and his people had released Lorenz. They'd liquefied him and mixed him into the batch of LCL meant for the entry plug. From there, it was just a matter of time. As long as we _thought_ Aoba wanted us to seal the Eva underground and destroy it, we'd do everything in our power to set it free. Aoba must've deliberately left a piece of the Crown of Thorns embedded within the Eva—a piece that became active and virulent when the time was right. If it had asserted control over the Eva underground, it was very likely we would've kept Unit-14 contained. Even if it wrecked the base, it would've been trapped under tons of rock. Tricking us into releasing the Eva accomplished both of Seele's goals.

And Seele didn't waste any time proclaiming victory. Their propaganda was on the airwaves by the end of the hour, saying that all mankind should "prepare to enter the millennial kingdom." The Crown of Thorns would usher us into a new and final era—and so on and so forth. They rattled off promise after promise of false salvation, and their voices brimmed with giddiness and glee. Only devils could welcome the apocalypse with such open arms.

There was little we could do to shut them up. From Tokyo-2, Unit-14 headed for the ocean. Misato had all remaining SDF forces converge on the Eva's path, but it didn't matter. They bombarded the Eva with bullets, shells, and N2 weapons. It was futile: the Eva shrugged off N2 weapons like they were firecrackers. It flung tanks aside with a flick of its foot.

I stood with Nozomi throughout that time. I kept talking to her, trying to reassure her, but Lorenz was in the entry plug. He could undo all of my well-meaning words with just a look and a smirk. Nozomi resisted him and her bindings, but her efforts were futile. She could lash out at him as much as she liked; Lorenz didn't care. She could tug and yank on the vines, but they had no slack to pull against. She was a prisoner in the Eva, forced to watch and listen as the beast decimated all that stood in its way. Her strength faded, and she drifted into a daze, shutting both Lorenz and me out.

The Eva headed for the Indian Ocean. It could have only one destination: the second Black Moon.

Our purpose was clear, then. The attack plans that had been drawn up to attack the enemy's stronghold were quickly modified and co-opted for a new purpose: Get Nozomi back. Get Unit-14 back. Stop Fourth Impact before Seele make it happen.

All the world would contribute. The American and German Eva would be the vanguard. An international armada would steam for the Indian Ocean, providing passage and firepower. Allied aircraft would blot out the sky. Were it not for the loss of life in Second and Third Impact, it would've been the largest mobilization of armed forces in the history of the world. At the very least, it'd be the largest coalition—in terms of number of countries—ever assembled.

While Misato and Hyuga coordinated with our allies, I stood watch in the backup control room. We'd lost contact with Unit-14 once it reached sufficient depth, but there was still a chance that, even if we couldn't hear back from the Eva, that Nozomi might hear me. Every ten minutes, I made a call out into the dark.

"Eva Unit-14, this is Manoah Base Control, do you read?"

Nothing.

"Nozomi, it's Ikari. Can you hear me?"

Always nothing.

Every ten minutes, I made the two calls, gave it a ten-count just in case, and shut off my microphone. My responsibility was to stay on watch. What I did after making the regular check and hearing nothing was my business.

So, I brought some things with me to pass the time: _A Tale of Two Cities_ and a sketchpad.

Well, I'm exaggerating slightly. To say I used these things to pass the time would be an overstatement. I didn't, really. I laid the book and the sketchpad on the desk—not my desk, mind you, but a similar plastic desk to my own in the real control room.

And I'd watch them.

Now, I know that sounds a little crazy. It's not as though I expected the book or the sketchpad to move.

But I _watched_ them.

I watched them, and they _spoke_ to me.

I heard Ayanami reading the monologue of Sydney Carton as he went to the guillotine for a death he didn't deserve. I heard Nozomi giving me tips on pencil strokes and perspective.

These voices I heard clearly, yet in time, they would fade, as all things inevitably do. My memory would fail me if I didn't hear those voices again. At some point, no one would live who'd ever heard either of them speak, and their voices would be lost forever.

That's all logical, but there was a part of me that didn't want to believe it. There was a part of me that stared at the book and the sketchpad. It stared and even held on to those objects, as though to capture Ayanami and Nozomi's voices in my hand like fireflies, but I had no jar to keep them in.

I realized then that Seele was right about one thing: life is painful. Life is full of pain and suffering, for that is the nature of it. The world itself and the passage of time—they were my enemy, my bane.

The promise of a world with people betrayed me. I'd known that time would come; I'd dared to think it wouldn't be so soon, but it came—not because Ayanami and Nozomi had been taken from me but because of what I'd left them with.

You never say all you ought to say to someone.

You never feel like you know how much people love you as well as you think you should.

This is always true, and yet how often do we go out of our way to tell people what they deserve to hear? How often do we remind the people around us that they're loved?

Not often enough.

Now, the easy thing to do would've been to speak some of those words over the radio, hoping Ayanami and Nozomi could hear, but that would've been empty. At best, it would've made me feel better without accomplishing anything.

What good are words shouted to an empty forest?

The ten-minute check-in came again.

"Eva Unit-14, this is Manoah Base Control, do you read?" I said.

Nothing.

"Nozomi, it's Ikari. Can you hear me?"

Nothing.

I looked up at the projector screen. As Unit-14 walked along the ocean floor, a dashed line traced its path. It would make landfall in China, presumably to continue its journey to India on the ground. Maybe then we'd be able to reach her.

Until then, there was only the faint hum of electrical noise in my ear. My words spoken to the void were never heard.

#

I passed on monitoring of the plugcom station after a few hours. There was no chance of reaching Nozomi while she was underwater, and Misato had been gracious enough to offer another SDF officer as relief while I retired for the evening.

I stopped by the infirmary to pick up Asuka—she was fine, aside from the bruise on her face. They'd given her some fluids just to be safe. As soon as the doctors cleared her, I took Asuka back to our quarters to rest—and I insisted that she rest. A little food was fine, but after that? Right to bed. No questions. I wouldn't have it any other way. Asuka was a little taken aback at how forceful I was about this, but once it was clear I wouldn't budge, I think she appreciated where I was coming from. She might have even liked it a little.

While Asuka was sleeping, I got back to work. I brought a heap of photographs and documents from my office and spread them over our desk. I brought up dozens more on Asuka's base laptop: photos of the Black Moon, disposition of naval forces, satellite thermal imaging, and more.

I searched through the material like a termite chewing through a grand staircase. Once I devoured each sheet, I tossed it aside. Papers fell like snowflakes around the desk.

Maybe you can't understand it, but have you ever felt there was something you had to do because you wouldn't forgive yourself if you didn't? Or, did you ever know there was something totally pointless ahead of you—something you could never succeed in—yet you felt like you had to go through the motions anyway?

This was like that, for me. I'm no tactician, no military planner. I knew even less about materials and battle formations than I did about Seele's prophesies, but it was something I had to do. If I had the choice between sitting there, listening to the silence, and combing through every document or piece of data we had on the enemy, I'd make the same choice every time.

These people had taken Ayanami from me. They were taking Nozomi from me. They'd almost taken Asuka from me. They'd nearly driven Misato from me. Well, not anymore, not if I had something to say about it! You can't stress friendships—you can't steal loved ones—and expect no one to come knocking on your door. Seele believed that there was nothing good in this world. They were the real problem. They were the ones dissolving the bonds that made us human. There could be no greater crime than forcing Ayanami to face an eternity of sameness—of neverending stubbornness—just so we could enjoy the right to exist. There could be no greater sin than crucifying Nozomi just so Lorenz could enact his twisted vision of paradise.

No more. No fucking more of that. I wouldn't have it.

Even so, as much as I felt that anger driving me, I don't think I expected to find an answer in those photos and briefings. I think, at the time, I felt compelled to look just so the rage wouldn't consume me.

But I did find an answer in there. I found a way to save Ayanami and Nozomi both. I found the way to end the war.

I held it in my hand, and the paper trembled, for my whole body shook as I realized the significance of it. The way to finding Ayanami—to bringing her back and stopping Lorenz cold in his tracks—was built on the simplest of things:

A diagram of a Geofront support strut.

#

I took my idea to Misato and Hyuga the next morning. The idea was simple: Ayanami had shown me a vision of a Geofront, and with her, I'd seen the white giant's chamber and a route from there to the outside. I couldn't remember the exact path in detail, but if I were there, it might come to me. All we needed was a starting point, and I had that: the airlock. There were only so many airlocks on the Geofront, in spite of its size, and I could pick out a particular one. I'd seen glyphs next to airlock control panel and etched above the airlock door. I didn't understand what they meant, but I was fairly sure they were a unique identifier. I drew them—an open triangle, a single dot, and an open hourglass shape—and Hyuga recognized them right away.

"They're digits from the First Ones' number system," he said, studying the drawing I'd made. "It reads as 3-1-5."

There were some minor details about that—the First Ones used a base-six numeral system, so the number itself wasn't three hundred and fifteen—but that was of no consequence. The core idea I had was sound. Based on photographs of the Geofront, we identified airlock 315. That would be our point of entry, and the vision I'd experienced, I would help lead an SDF team to the white giant.

But as Misato, Hyuga, and I went over these details in her office, Misato had one question for me:

"So we find the Seed of Life in her chamber," said Misato. "What then?"

That was a tough question. We could bring a bomb—or two, or ten?—to destroy the giant, but if she resisted, that likely wouldn't work.

Even so, I knew what I wanted to do. "We go there," I told Misato and Hyuga, "and we make her give Ayanami back. Whatever it takes."

Misato and Hyuga wanted some time to consider my idea and the part I'd play in it. Regardless of my role, the preparations to attack were underway. In 48 hours at most, the nations of the world would move on the Black Moon and Seele. Word was that our people would have to depart for the armada no later than the next day.

That left us with some time to plan, think, and wait.

#

The base was on edge. People were all over the place, going from one section to the next. Additional repair crews and technicians were on scene, working on the main control room, and military police took some of the captives back to Tokyo-2 for further interrogation and detainment. With so many people about, walking at a brisk pace from one sector to the next, anyone standing still was a stone among rapids, liable to be washed away at any moment.

I held my place against the current by resolving to reach Nozomi once again, and this time, I invited her sisters to help. The elder Horaki sisters—Hikari and Kodama—had been put up in a guest area on-base due to the circumstances. They might spend many hours on the radio trying to reach Nozomi over the next few days. It seemed a minimal kindness that I would be the one to show them how the transmitter worked.

The two sisters were uneasy, just like the rest of us. Stoic Kodama took a long time in front of the microphone thinking about what she wanted to say. At last, she made a halting plea: "Hello, Nozomi," she said, sitting forward in her seat. "This is Kodama. If you can hear me, say something. Hikari, Ikari, and I are all here—your family is here. We aren't going to stop reaching out and trying to get you home."

No answer. Kodama looked to me with a quizzical expression, offering the microphone back, but I encouraged her to keep going. We couldn't expect a response, let alone an immediate one. She kept trying, but it's hard to talk to a microphone and hear nothing back.

Horaki was having a hard time dealing with it, too. As Kodama made her appeals for Nozomi to answer, Horaki and I stepped aside, and she made some small talk. She lamented that she and Nozomi had just begun talking again—really talking—yet hadn't gotten anywhere.

"We thought it was best to take things slow," Horaki remarked, and she laughed bitterly. "We acted like there was all the time in the world."

"It's good to be careful," I said. "I don't think that was the wrong thing to do."

Horaki met my gaze from the side. "But she's a pilot. It's dangerous work. You don't always have time."

I sighed, and I glanced out the observation window in turn, even though the projector screens were blank. "That's true," I said. "But you were working on it. That has to count for something."

"For something." Horaki made a fist. "But we have to get her back."

"Yeah, we do."

Back in the corner, Kodama took her finger off the transmit switch, and she offered the microphone to Horaki. "Are you ready for a turn?" the eldest sister asked.

Horaki grimaced, and she glanced at me. "No one else is listening, right?"

I winced. "They…probably are, somewhere."

Horaki made a face at that, but she sighed, and she let it pass. Kodama passed the microphone to her, and Horaki cleared her throat, beginning timidly.

"Hello, Nozomi?"

Silence.

"Nozomi? Nozomi, can you hear me?"

A shiver went down my spine. For a moment, my mind wasn't in the observation room. I remembered sitting in the theater—the ephemeral theater that Ayanami and the stranger had shown me a few times. I remembered listening to Horaki. I couldn't see her; the screen was filled with Nozomi instead. Nozomi was in the entry plug, with vines and thorns from the Crown holding her up. Her breath caught at Horaki's voice, but she didn't respond.

"Nozomi, please," said Horaki. "I don't know if you can hear me. I don't—if you can answer, but you need to stay strong. Stay strong and keep fighting. Just be stubborn like always, and there's nothing they can do to you. Isn't that right? Nozomi?"

I'd seen it all before. I knew it was coming. I didn't want to believe it, but it happened. It was unavoidable. Ayanami saw it. I just didn't want to believe _her_.

As hard as we worked, as much as we tried, we were on a path to this state of ruin, this desperation, and nothing I had done could change that.

Did Ayanami know all of what the future held? Did she know that she would have to leave us? Was she avoiding that for all the time I'd seen her, ever since she saved me from the madman in the soup kitchen—the madman with the gun?

Did she try to avoid it and only realize that it was impossible?

And if she did, then what was the point of me sitting there, trying to reach Nozomi? Maybe Ayanami knew what would happen with that, too. Maybe she knew what the future held as far as anyone could imagine. If she did, then what was the point of any of this?

Horaki must've noticed what was going through my head, for she stopped transmitting and caught my attention. "Are you all right?" she asked.

I flinched. "What? Oh, sorry, yes."

"Do you want a turn?" She offered the microphone.

I laughed bitterly. "It doesn't seem to be doing much good. Maybe that was wishful thinking on my part."

Horaki's expression soured. "We can't control whether it works," she said. "What we _can_ do is make every effort—our best effort—to try."

She forced the microphone to my lap, and I fumbled to catch it before it rolled away. Horaki shot me an expectant look, and I raised the microphone to my lips. I paused, my brow furrowing, before I said,

"Nozomi, I hope you can hear me. I hope you're still there. It's Ikari. I—"

I turned the microphone aside and gathered myself. I rose from my seat and paced beside the observation room window as technicians and repair crews continued to work below. So much damage had been done, yet they were coming along all right. They took out old, broken monitors and swapped them for new ones. They filled in holes in the wall with plaster and painted over them as if nothing had happened.

But the holes were still there, weren't they?

"I'm sorry," I said at last, looking to the communication station in the corner of the room. "I knew something like this might eventually happen. I didn't know what I could to do, not enough to stop it. We put you through a lot. We put you through too much. I don't think any apology can truly make up for that."

I glanced at Horaki and Kodama, and the girls smiled and nodded in return. I nodded back in respect, and I went on.

"You don't deserve to be there; you don't deserve to suffer like this," I said into the microphone. "We want to get you out, but I can't ask anything more of you. It's your choice to keep fighting to hold on or not. If you do…, then just know we're coming for you. I want you to know that. We're coming for you, and we will not stop until you're back with us. Count on it, Nozomi."

I switched off the mic, and I listened for several seconds—several seconds of dead air. Even so, I closed my eyes and listened anyway, hoping against all hope.

"That was very kind of you, Ikari," said Kodama. "Thank you for all you've done for her, these past few months. I think she's been better for it."

"She has been," said Horaki. "Definitely. Thank you, Ikari."

I bowed my head as the faint static in the speaker went on unabated. "I appreciate that," I told them, "but I'm not done trying."

I offered the microphone back to the Horaki sisters, but before Kodama could take another turn, there was a knock at the door.

"Any luck in here?" said Asuka, peering inside.

"Not yet," said Horaki. "Knowing Nozomi, she'll choose to answer when it suits her and not a second before."

Asuka huffed at that; the pretext of exasperation was more palatable than reality. "Keep trying; we'll get to her. Do you mind if I borrow Shinji for a minute?"

Neither of the Horaki sisters objected, and I went to the hall with Asuka, who pulled the door shut with a gentle touch.

"So, I just spoke with Misato," she said. "You're on for the mission."

"I am?" I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, that's good. What about you?"

"I'm staying behind," she told me, looking away. "Maya wants to put something together to jam that mind control artifact. I'm gonna do a little double-duty between that and handling Nozomi, whenever she gets back to us."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to—"

"Of course you didn't." Asuka waved off my concern. "Don't worry about it. What I have to deal with should be the least of your worries." She put a hand on my shoulder and froze me with her stare. "Get them back," she said to me, "and get yourself back here, too."

I pulled her in close, hoping that the gesture would mean more than just words.

#

The main forces for the assault flew to the forward base the next day. Pacific forces of the international fleet gathered in Jakarta, an effort that was part coordination and part reclamation. Indonesia had fallen early in the war, but with the enemy on the retreat, humanity had taken the country back.

Or rather, we'd taken the land back—things like the airport and the harbor. Military people manned the port and organized people from the various nations to their ships, but beyond them, there was no one. There were few cars on the streets of Jakarta, and even where there were, they often had stopped in the middle of intersections or crashed into buildings on the side of the road. Even on the way from Soekarno-Hatta to the harbor, the caravan had to stop a few times for stray vehicles to be moved aside.

At the harbor, we were shown back to the helicopter destroyer _Ise_. As we got underway, I stayed on the deck, watching the waves and the sunset as we steamed for the Indian Ocean, but on a busy ship going to war, I wasn't alone for long.

"Are you feeling ill, Ikari?"

That was Captain Suzuki, leader of the assault contingent aboard _Ise_. She was short-haired and stern-faced, but she leaned over the railing, resting her elbows on the top, and stared out over the water with me.

"No," I said, nodding. "I used to get sick, but not much anymore."

"That's good for you, then." Suzuki popped two pills into her mouth and swallowed. "What changed?"

"Piloting."

"I see." Suzuki fished through her pockets, taking out a plastic bottle. "Dry run's in half an hour. You ready?"

"Yeah." I laughed to myself. "For all the good it'll do, I'm ready."

"That's all we ask." She took a swig while staring over the ocean.

"You think we have a chance?" I asked.

"I think we've planned, and we've practiced." She frowned, her gaze intensifying. "Everything else is out of our hands."

"Really?" I gawked at her.

"Yes."

"That's okay?"

"We don't get a choice in the matter." Suzuki fixed some stray strands of her hair, tightening them back into a bun behind her cap. "We can't do anything about it."

I glanced over the ocean again. The ocean waves broke against the ship's hull and dissipated in the wake behind us. Toward the horizon, the waves merged and intermingled with other crests and currents. They interfered with one another, muddying the wake.

#

The assault began at dawn.

I went with Captain Suzuki and her team. We took a helicopter, departing from the aft deck of _Ise_. The morning sun was like the backlight for a performance of shadow puppets: Unit-15 and Unit-16 stood above the horizon, casting long shadows over the ocean.

But even their shadows were dwarfed by that of the Black Moon. The sphere hovered over the water, and when the sun rose behind it, it was like a total eclipse—cold and dark.

Naval guns boomed, peppering the Black Moon's surface with shells, but the Geofront was so enormous that the bombardment was like trying to take down a skyscraper with airsoft pellets. The impacts lit up the Geofront with small explosions, but it went back to an inert black shell in no time at all.

On the far side of the Geofront, the Eva battled the Angels. Unit-15 and Unit-16 darted and zipped around the Disc Angel. Their jetpacks spewed blazing jets of gas. The Eva buzzed about the Angel like gnats. The Disc Angel lunged at the Eva in turn, over and over in suicidal attacks. Their AT-fields collided and exploded, showering energy over the ocean.

But we sped on under the unnatural aurora, bobbing with the air currents and eddies that swirled around the Geofront. The helicopter hovered along the outside of the Geofront's surface. Using binoculars, Suzuki's men identified the outline of a door, and a single man dangled from the helicopter to plant explosive charges. On the far side of the Geofront, the Eva and Angel shook the ocean whenever they fell, and the bombardment rattled the Black Moon, but as the sappers planted their charges and descended again, the rest of us held fast in the boats, waiting for the cue to go ahead.

KA-BLAM!

Debris showered down to the ocean. The SDF member on the tether went back down, stepped inside the gap, and planted another set of charges to break down the inner airlock door. He was raised clear, and—

KA-BLAM!

One last inspection, and the all clear signal was given. We were lowered two at a time to the door, with the first men inside pulling us through the gap.

Even still, smoke wafted out of the blasted airlock. I unclipped a flashlight from my vest, and I shined a light on the area. I inspected the area above the airlock door. The imprinted glyphs were worn, but the shapes were still legible: the open triangle, the single dot, and the open hourglass. _315_.

Once the rest of the team had descended, Captain Suzuki did a quick headcount before getting us underway. "Everybody good?" she checked once more. "All right." She nodded at me. "Ikari, where do we need to go?"

The SDF members fanned out down two hallways; their rifle-mounted flashlights lit up a foggy atmosphere.

"To the right," I said.

The team down the left hallway pulled back and took the lead down the other passage, and Captain Suzuki and I followed from the middle of the group.

The inside the Geofront was far from pristine. We passed by corridors with no lighting at all, and the air was heavy with humidity. The dampness stuck to my skin like a film. It was more like walking through LCL than air.

After a while, we saw why that was so: some sections of the corridors had hollow doors, made of some synthetic metal or plastic in a honeycomb pattern. These weren't doors to rooms so much as access hatches to channels or ducts.

And what did these ducts carry, you ask? LCL of course.

When we passed by one of these access hatches, the LCL poured into the corridor and coalesced into walkers. They ambushed the two SDF members in the lead, stabbing them with those needle-like fingers, but bullets ripped through the beasts' bodies in short order. The walkers collapsed back into LCL once more.

"Watch for these!" ordered Captain Suzuki, who slammed her hand on one of those honeycomb grates. She tapped one of the men in front of us. "Are they coming back?"

Three of the SDF members circled the puddle of LCL in the corridor, but the liquid was still.

"Keep an eye on them," said Suzuki, and she motioned for the group to continue on.

We crept around the LCL puddle. Faintly, I could see a little of my own reflection in it, and even as we passed, the reflection was clear and the goo inert.

We passed a few more hexagonal grates like that first one, and Captain Suzuki's team obliterated the enemy walkers or shriekers in a hail of bullets each time.

In spite of those occasional interruptions, we pressed on. I did my best to remember the route, but in those dark and winding passages, with their confusing three-way intersections, I got disoriented a few times. Thankfully, the team had handheld pattern detectors on them. We needed the technology and my memories both. Where my memories failed, the pattern detectors gave us a direction to continue in. Where the handhelds pointed us at a wall, the memories of the vision reminded me how we could get around it.

We kept going like that until we reached the chamber.

The chamber itself was an artificial lake of LCL. We crept down a set of networked walkways over the lake, and the paths funneled us toward the center:

…where the white giant sat half-immersed in the liquid and stared at the back wall.

The giant was totally unresponsive. Suzuki shined a flashlight in its five eyes, but each eye blinked independently of the others in no clear pattern. We tried speaking to the giant; I even yelled at the beast, "You came all the way here just to stare at us like a dumb cow?" but still, nothing. On Suzuki's orders, one of the SDF members leveled his rifle on the creature and fired. There was so little reaction that we weren't even sure the bullet hit the target.

So much for negotiations. So much for persuation. So much for making the giant surrender. We couldn't even so much as scratch the thing, let alone make it listen.

With the giant unresponsive, Suzuki radioed for the second team to move in. They came some minutes later, wheeling a pallet of N2 explosives to the foot of the giant. The array was composed of sixteen warheads stacked in a four-by-four square and at least as tall as I was. Suzuki ordered that the men directly attach a few of the weapons to the giant's body, but the best they could do was float a couple warheads by inflatable boat to the giant's legs.

If the thing wouldn't listen to reason (or anything at all), the best we could do was kill it and make sure its power could never again be used against us.

But were weren't totally undisturbed while these preparations were underway. One of our patrols encountered resistance in the passages outside the main chamber, and Suzuki had her people dig in for a firefight. As the last weapons were being armed, I took cover on the center walkway, behind a portable barrier, while Suzuki took most of her people closer to the entrances. The SDF team erected black synthetic barricades ten meters or so in front of each entrance to the chamber, and the tunnels flashed with gunfire. SDF members took cover behind the barricades, peering over them to shoot down the passageways.

Captain Suzuki was right there with them. She lay down behind a barricade and barked orders to her men. More to the left, she told them. Get new magazines.

But when a bullet grazed one SDF member's shoulder, a whole barricade team shut down. Another man put his rifle down to tend to the wounded, but Suzuki was having none of that. They had to dress him up and get him out. They had a job to do. "We're holding this chamber," she instructed them. "We're holding it as long as we have to. Don't let them get the best of you!"

All the while, I stayed behind cover on the central walkway. As the SDF members made their stand, the popping sounds of gunfire echoed through the chamber, and the room rattled as grenades shredded the entrance halls. We were fighting so hard for this position—a position we would ultimately abandon, if given the choice.

But more and more of the enemy came for us. They descended on the chamber from all directions. Seele militants and alien creatures threw their bodies at the entrances, shrugging off bullet wounds like they were pinpricks.

And as one of the entrances was breached, one of the SDF members on the central walkway armed the N2 array. I made eye contact with the man, a sergeant under Suzuki's command, and he shot me a look of regret.

"I'm sorry," he said to me. "If they get any closer, those are my orders. We've got one shot at this."

One shot to destroy the enemy and be destroyed in turn. And all to destroy what—some inert giant that stared lifelessly at us? That had taken Ayanami away from me and didn't even have the nerve to act smug about it?

No way.

So I rose from the center barricade. I stomped to the end of the platform, and I challenged the white giant:

"Well?" I said to her, raising both arms. "How much more do you want? You got Lilith; you're going to get all of us. And you still want more?"

The giant didn't move. She just bled and bled into the lake beneath us; dark red fluid seeped out from her loins, swirling into the lighter-colored LCL that formed the rest of the basin.

Scowling, I took off my pack, and I jumped into the fluid, swimming from the end of the platform.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Wake up!"

Nothing.

"Kid, what are you doing?" yelled the sergeant. "Get back here!"

But I ignored him. I kept shouting at the giant, even as I tried paddling to it. "You don't get to come here and take all of that from us! Not for the sake of—of—whatever you wanted to accomplish! Say something!" I cried. "Look at me!"

I splashed to the giant's leg and clung to it like a bear to a tree trunk. I pounded my fist on the creature's skin. It rebounded off like a ping pong ball off a paddle. I beat the giant again and again, but the beast didn't even flinch.

"You moron!" I shouted. "What do you think this is going to do?"

I dropped my fist on the creature's side one more time.

And that hand sank into the giant's bubbly flesh.

I yelped, and I yanked my fist out. The giant's flesh stuck to me like bubblegum, but it all snapped back into place, more willing to stick to itself than to me.

Even so, I stared at my hand and then glanced back at the giant's body. I wiggled my fingers.

The giant's eyes were unmoving. The SDF members at the barricade rotated when they ran out of ammunition, but enemies had breached the tunnel entrances. Their bodies piled up in the open, and their rifles clattered on the floor as they fell.

I looked back to the tunnel we came from—an old tunnel, which some of the synthetic paneling around the frame decayed and in pieces. It hadn't always looked that way, I'm sure. Once upon a time, people had walked through a tunnel like that one, and it looked pristine and new.

I closed my eyes, and I took a breath.

I flattened my right hand and put all the fingers together.

I pushed with the tips of my fingers into the giant's leg, and my hand sank into it.

My arm sank into it.

I pulled myself tighter against the giant's leg, and the creature took me. The white, bubbly flesh crawled around my face and eyes.

My breath caught, but I couldn't breathe. The stuff of the giant's body choked me.

And it was dark.

#

It was dark, but something flickered in front of my sight.

The sight of a girl—a girl in white and green, and with red eyes.

"You shouldn't be here," said Ayanami, stern and disapproving.

She stood over me. My arms—I had arms!—rested numbly on purple, velvety armrests.

"Don't be hard on him, Lilith. He has a long time to think about his mistake."

The voice came from behind us. Up and back, next to a spinning film projector, the hooded stranger peered out at us, casting a long shadow over the room thanks to the projector's light.

"Hello again, Shinji Ikari," she said. "Welcome back to the theater of eternity."


	12. Legacy

**Legacy**  
 _Finale_

I found Ayanami there, in the theater, but there was no warmth in that place. A chill permeated the air, and the hooded stranger's icy smile offered no comfort, either.

"Well, Shinji?" she said. "You've come all this way."

The stranger and Ayanami both watched me, and their stares pierced me like laser beams.

"Uh, right!" I exclaimed. I faced down the stranger. "You! You need to end this. End this, and leave us alone."

Ayanami grimaced, and the stranger's lips curled in amusement.

"Really?" said the stranger. "That's the best you can do?"

Ayanami stepped in front of me. "He shouldn't be here. Let him leave."

"I'd be happy to let him leave," said the stranger, "if only someone weren't keeping us here!"

Looking aside, Ayanami glanced at me. "I'm sorry, Ikari. I owe her too much. General Katsuragi and the others—all humanity—they still have a chance. I won't jeopardize that."

I took Ayanami by the hand, and I caught her gaze. I smiled. "That's all right," I said. "I'd want to be there with them, but no one else can stand with you right now. So this is all right. It's why I'm here."

Ayanami smiled slightly, and she nodded. "Thank you."

In the back of the theater, the film projector spun up. "How sweet of you, Shinji," said the stranger. "But it's all for naught, you know."

I snarled. "Shut up!"

"Lilith is so confident, so certain to believe that humans can overcome what I've pitted against them." The stranger came down the steps with a rhythmic, deliberate gait. She could've balanced a book on her head—she was that steady with her step. "This is the hour mankind fails."

I stormed to the foot of the staircase, stopping the stranger there. "What makes you so sure? Why do you want this? Why did you betray Lilith and the others?"

The stranger clicked her tongue and shook her head. "I betrayed nothing and no one. Humanity was always going to fail. I'm merely speeding up the process. Let me dispel your illusions of goodness, Shinji. Lilith and I both can peer into the hearts of men. We see how flawed and destructive you are. The only difference between us is that Lilith still stubbornly believes you can change enough to avoid your self-destruction."

The stranger took a step to her right, looking to pass me, but I moved into the gap, blocking her.

"You're wrong," I said.

Looking up, the stranger froze me with a knowing smile. "Am I?"

The movie screen came to life, awash with the color red. The shot was an overhead view of the Black Moon hovering over the Indian Ocean. Allied ships were mere specks on the red water. The Disc Angel and the two Eva were like action figures—that's how small they were compared to the scope of the battle.

And as I took in the sight, the stranger walked by me, taking a seat in the front row.

"Lilith," she said, "shall we continue?"

Ayanami shot a cold stare at the stranger. She nodded, ever-so-slightly.

"Ayanami—" I began.

"Please, sit," she said, touching me on the shoulder. "The only way to convince her now is for her to see that she's wrong."

"How do we do that?" I asked.

"We have faith."

We sat together, in the front row. I fidgeted in the velvet seats: the back and the seat angle weren't quite right, but the back wouldn't lean any further, and the seat was as long as it was going to get.

The hooded stranger sat on my left, and the three of us were a captive audience to the fate of the world.

The overhead view of the battle faded to black, and the scene began.

#

"In the Case of Asuka Langley Soryu"—the words flashed on a black background, and the screen came to life once more.

Back at the base, Captain Ibuki's team worked feverishly in their lab. Lining the walls were three portable whiteboards. Equations and diagrams covered every square centimeter—none more central than a sketch of Unit-14 with the Crown of Thorns around its head.

"What if we sever the neural connections?" offered one of the scientists. "How far in do the vines go?"

"Not sure," said another. "The Eva could be a marionette by now, for all we know."

"So anything neural is out," said Maya, who drew a red X over the Eva's neck. "The answer here isn't going to come from manipulating neural connectors or force-ejecting the entry plug. Where does that leave us?"

The scientists shrugged and sighed all around. One of them even tossed a pen aside as he rubbed his forehead and groaned.

But not all of them were so frustrated. Asuka wasn't. She was hard at work.

At her cubicle in the lab, Asuka pored over lines of code, graphs, and tables. While the others were still trying to brainstorm ideas, Asuka generated a set of plots on her computer, but none of them were to her satisfaction. She tapped a pencil eraser on her desk and scowled at the monitors, but that didn't help matters much, either.

"How's it going here?" Maya peeked into Asuka's cubicle. "Any luck?"

Asuka sighed. "I'm getting some attenuation, but not enough."

"How much?"

"12 dB."

Maya winced. "That's not close, is it? We were thinking we might need 19 or 20."

"I've still got some things to try: different spectral profiles, frequency modulation…"

"Okay, hope there's something to it," said Maya, "but if not…" She took a chair from an adjacent cubicle. "Do you have a minute? I think we might have something, but it involves the engine."

Asuka glanced at the monitors. "I'm still waiting for some results. What's up?"

"Tezuka was thinking about using the puncture engine to prase-shift the anti-AT field and use that to generate some attenuation."

"Promising." Asuka nodded, still looking at the monitor. "Should be as easy as running a large amplitude current through the engine with the right phase."

"Really?"

"More or less," said Asuka with a shrug.

"Great!" said Maya, beaming. "I'll tell her. Let me know if you think of anything else that might help, all right?"

The windows on the screen flickered, and Asuka turned toward the monitor, typing at some on-screen prompts.

Maya rose, and she put the chair back at its cubicle.

Asuka did some more typing, and some text popped up at the bottom of a window: _13.2 dB_.

Frowning, Asuka sat back in her chair. She tapped her eraser end on the desk for a time. Then, she sat up straighter and looked over the cubicle wall to the whiteboards, where Maya and other scientists were brainstorming again. They were already working on something else involving frequency jamming.

Asuka snatched up a notepad and sketched a pair wave patterns, each 180 degrees out of phase with the other.

She tapped her eraser on the notepad binding for a time.

Then she tossed the notepad aside and typed at her computer. The _13.2 dB_ result disappeared, and the computer began churning for numbers once again.

#

"Do you see now?" At my left, the stranger leaned forward to catch my eye. "People work to outgrow their bad habits, but at the slightest stress, they fall back into them."

"You know that isn't true," said Ayanami, refusing to even meet the stranger's gaze. "There are countless counterexamples."

"But they will fail eventually," said the stranger. "It's only a matter of time."

And time was the enemy. How much time would Asuka spend there, in front of her own computer, while the rest of Maya's team worked toward a solution? How many seconds would they waste, toiling in parallel without learning from one another?

Oh how I wished Asuka would prove the stranger wrong. If I could've shouted at her to get out of that chair and talk to the others, I would've. But my voice wouldn't carry through the screen. I'd been reduced to a spectator, just like Ayanami. The most I could do was watch and have faith.

And the stranger seemed to delight in that. So sure she was of her point of view—all we needed was one person to prove her wrong.

"We're not all like that," I insisted. "Even if Asuka doesn't make a breakthrough, someone will."

"Really?" The stranger laughed. "Are you sure about that?"

"Let's continue," said Ayanami, shooting the stranger a pointed look.

The stranger waved her hand, and the projector resumed, but the film cut to black before we resumed another place, another time, and another subject.

#

"In the Case of Misato Katsuragi."

Misato, Major Hyuga, and the many of the mission staff coordinated the battle from the flag operations room aboard _Ise_. Sailors and control staff marked the positions of important elements: ships in the fleet in their formations around the Black Moon, Unit-15 and Unit-16 as they battled the Disc Angel, and Japanese and other special forces within the Geofront structure—all ten thousand cubic kilometers of it.

But Misato wasn't in much of a position to do anything. The American and German Eva slugged it out with the Angel, hopping between floating platforms and rocketing into the sky to keep pace. The ships of the fleet held their stations, not wanting to draw closer to the battle zone. The ground forces within the structure were already delivered, and all Misato could do was listen and wait.

Her comm officer gave a report about Captain Suzuki. Suzuki notified them that I had disappeared, and that they could not count on holding the position much longer. They were prepared to withdraw to the central platform, beneath the giant, and detonate the N2 weapon array, even if it cost their lives.

Misato looked to Hyuga, who gave her a grim nod.

"If the chamber can't be held," said Misato, "then we must ask them to proceed. If there is an opportunity for them to escape, they should pursue it, but only if that doesn't compromise the detonation. Am I clear?"

The comm officer relayed the order, but Misato's mind was elsewhere. She leaned on another strategy table, one that showed cutaways of the Black Moon. As one staff member updated Suzuki's position on the floor plan, Misato hovered over that spot, muttering,

"Where did you go, Shinji? We needed you here."

The film cut to an exterior scene. Unit-15 and Unit-16 buzzed about the Disc Angel, bashing against the Angel's AT field. The collisions lit up the morning sky. The Angel was on the defensive: the American Eva, in blue, white, and red, caught hold of the Angel's AT field by the teeth and tore a layer off.

Recoiling, the Disc Angel fled toward the Black Moon. It flew underneath the sphere, in the narrow gap between the bottom surface and the water. The two Eva—equipped with jetpacks—followed in the Angel's path, but the Angel had kicked up a wake of spray and choppy water. The mist gummed up the American Eva's jetpack intake, and the Eva tumbled into the sea. The German Eva backed off, veering away to find another course of pursuit.

That gave the Disc an opening. The German Eva had pulled back; there was nothing between the Disc and the bulk of the allied fleet.

The Disc turned edge-downward, and it sped toward an aircraft carrier. Flying just a few meters over water, the Disc kicked up a V-shaped wake. It sliced through the carrier's port side, cutting it in two.

"Get the captain on the horn," said Misato, scowling. "We need to get some distance."

"General," said one of the comm officers, "Admiral McNamara for you."

Misato picked up a red phone on the side of the strategy table. "Katsuragi here."

"General, it seems the situation has changed," said the American on the other end of the line. "We're committing our destroyers to suppressive fire on the Angel and rescue efforts. The bombardment is on hold. Send your best special operations forces to airlock 1121. We're going to try the same trick you pulled to get at Seele and Unit-14."

"Admiral, sir, I have to advise against that. We're 80% of the way through the outer armor of the Geofront. We can break through with a continued bombardment. If you rely on special forces for infiltration, there is no guarantee they'll find a way to Unit-14 in time."

"Do you suggest we sit here defenseless while the Angel rips our fleet apart?"

"I would rather try. We have a chance here, Admiral."

"Not enough of one," said the admiral. "Decision's made. Protect your people."

Scowling, Misato pounded her fist on the strategy table. "Protect them how? There is no protection here, John! There is no refuge from what Unit-14 is about to unleash. If you play it safe, you are leaving your people and mine to Instrumentality. That's bullshit. You know that's bullshit."

The staff in the operations room stared, but Misato shrugged off their gazes like a statue.

"John?" she demanded. "What's your answer?"

"I'm sorry, Misato," said the voice on the other end of the line. "This comes from above me."

Shaking her head, Misato slammed the phone back on its base. "As you were," she announced to the room. "Continue the bombardment!"

"General," said Hyuga, hovering at her side, "how can we alone break through the Geofront's armor in time?"

"We're going to keep shelling it until we don't have the ordnance to try any longer."

"Yes, ma'am."

And so, even as the helicopter destroyer _Ise_ steamed at full speed away from the Angel, sailors held fast on its guns and missile launch bays. They unleashed hell on the Geofront, bombarding the surface with explosive shells and warheads. Other Japanese ships in the armada kept up the attack, and that one spot on the Geofront's exterior pulsed with flame.

"How close are we?" asked Misato, watching the bombardment intently.

"90% through the primary superstructure," said an officer.

"Good. And the Angel?"

"Bearing 090 at 1500 meters—1200—1050. Shipboard defenses are acquiring target."

The ship rattled. Fire from the smaller point-defense guns rattled the ship.

"No effect," said the officer. "Negligible impact."

The German Eva—in red and black with white stripes—came screaming around the Geofront's lower edge to pick a fight with the Angel. The Eva latched onto the Angel's AT field like a mosquito to a bull, but the Angel twisted itself into a harrowing spin. Glowing bright, the Angel was a second sun over the ocean. It was so intense that I shaded my eyes just to protect myself.

And then the Angel stopped. It stopped, and a counterforce rippled through the air. A sharp wavefront shot from the Angel's body, twisting the air and the ocean below. The German Eva was flung aside and left to the mercy of this artificial tornado; it floundered as it tried to navigate a straight course and keep up with the Angel.

But the Angel moved on, bearing down on the helicopter destroyer _Ise_.

Misato bowed her head. "So here we are," she said, laughing to herself. She watched a dot on the radar screen close in on _Ise_ , and in vain, she formed her thumb and forefinger into a mock gun. "Bang," she said, pointing at the screen.

The Angel cut through the port side of _Ise_. The ship lurched and shook. The lights went out, and Misato was thrown against a plotting table. _Ise_ was wounded and bleeding; the two halves of the ship split apart. The crew lowered lifeboats while rescue ships converged on the scene—and as they did, other destroyers and gunboats in the fleet were cut down in turn.

As their guns went silent, the damaged surface of the Geofront held firm. A tiny bit of light poked through a section in an upper octant, but that was all.

Inside the Geofront, Captain Suzuki and her men held only the central walkway against the combined forces of Seele and the walkers. Her people lit the N2 array, obliterating the chamber. The LCL evaporated; the blast carved out the walls of the room, leaving gashes across the honeycomb superstructure.

But the white giant lay at the bottom of the crater, blinking intermittently. There wasn't a scratch on the beast. It stared, eyes never wavering, and I looked back at it.

"Can we take a break?" I asked, pulling at my shirt collar.

The hooded stranger nodded, and the projector spun to a halt.

"Ikari—"

Ayanami reached after me, but I scampered up from my seat and strode down the right aisle to the back of the theater.

There was another pair of double doors at the back of the theater, each with a small, rectangular window. I shaded my eyes, but the view beyond was dark.

"Is there something this way?" I demanded. "Or is this room the only thing I'm ever going to see again?"

The hooded stranger flicked her hand in my direction, not looking at me.

I breathed in and out, and I pushed ahead.

I pushed into a hall of movie theaters, extending as far as I could see in both directions.

Not knowing which path was the better one, I faced to the left, put one foot ahead of the other, and started walking.

#

In the past, I'd often gone walking on my own. It's helpful to be away from people. It's helpful to see a little bit of the world yourself. In wandering, you gain some perspective. You see so many other people laughing and eating and moving around. None of them know you. Your problems and worries are your own, you realize. They don't matter as much to anyone else.

That's the feeling I was going for, but I admit that I may have walked out of the theater without thinking it through. The hall of theaters outside was desolate and devoid of other people to distract me. There were countless other theaters playing who-knew-what. There wasn't even a concession stand with overpriced soda or candy.

Nevertheless, I wandered down the hall for some time. It became a point of stubbornness or defiance, even. Have you ever started on a puzzle and not known how to solve it? Like a Rubik's cube, say—I once started a Rubik's cube, and I was young enough that I couldn't figure it out on my own, and I was too strong-headed to look up common tricks and techniques, so I spent hours on that thing. I spend the better part of a night and into a morning turning and twisting that thing.

Eventually, I gave up. I peeled the stickers off and "solved" it that way.

And like the younger me back then, I grew tired of treading through the endless hall only to find the same thing I'd seen ten minutes before, and ten minutes before that, and on and on. Nothing was ever different.

So after a time, I ducked into one of the theaters to see what was playing.

"Yes, let me see." A boy dipped wooden spoon into a pot of soup, and he tasted a few drops, smacking his lips. "I think that's good."

Another man in an apron nodded, and he carried the pot of soup out into a cafeteria, where a number of ragged, scraggly people had gathered in two lines, waiting with trays and empty bowls.

And the boy watched them through a crack in the double doors to the kitchen. He did not dare walk out or show his face.

There were a lot of theaters like that one. In another, Misato was a common GSDF officer, overseeing disaster relief and troop movements to secure remote areas of Japan. In another still, Nozomi spent her days under the bridge, drawing until the sun went down while her sister stood on their home's doorstep and gazed over the old rice paddies, waiting.

I slammed the door to one of the theaters and stormed down the hall again; there was no point in watching any of that. I hadn't come all the way there to be subjected to that. Our lives were not more wonderful or fulfilling just for having chosen to be a part of this conflict.

Still, I kept popping into theaters every few steps, looking for something interesting. I ran across one in which Asuka and I were childhood friends, my mother was still alive, and Misato was our absurdly-attractive teacher. Sounds ideal, right? It's everything I could've wanted.

And yet, after an hour or so of wacky antics and sexual awkwardness, I grew tired of that, too. It was like I'd grown up seeing only in black and white, and when I first caught a glimpse of color—real color—I found it scary and confusing. Seeing myself living a happy life, with trivial worries—that didn't sit right with me, either.

So, what is the place I could be in, then? Where did I belong?

Those were both relatively inconsequential concerns, considering I was stuck inside the head of an alien creature, but they stayed with me anyway.

And so, I kept searching.

I poked my head into another theater and found something more familiar.

"This wasn't in the simulator, so I'm gonna need an idea!" That was Nozomi's voice. She and Unit-14 were trapped in a shared AT field illusion. False reflections of the Eva stared back at them wherever they looked. One of the Angels clung to the Eva's flesh and armor like a corrosive cloud.

I sat down in one of the back rows and closed my eyes as the rest of the battle played out. The scientists worked out a solution thanks in part to a suggestion from Asuka, and Asuka, in turn, was asked to relay the instructions to Nozomi.

"Manoah Base Control to Evangelion Unit-14, do you read?" asked Asuka.

"I've got you, Soryu," said Nozomi. "Please tell me we're not gonna do all the formality every time we talk."

Asuka laughed at that, and in my theater seat, I smiled too.

You know, I'd been very proud of her in that moment. I was happy for Asuka. She made herself a little better that day. She made herself better when I—I had doubted her. A lot of people had. Asuka grew to want to like herself, enough that she changed something she didn't like.

It was just after Nozomi broke through the illusion and started the final attack that someone else entered the theater. My eyes snapped open, and I went to the edge of the staircase, peering over the railing to the entryway below.

Ayanami was there, looking back at me.

"Hey," I said.

She nodded—only once, only slightly. "How are you?" she asked.

I laughed. "I've been better," I said. "You?"

Watching the screen, she said, "I've been better."

She glanced to me, smiling a little, and I laughed again. "You wanna come up?"

She nodded, and she came up the ramp and the stairs. I offered her the seat by the aisle, and we sat together for a time.

The film transitioned to Nozomi and Unit-14, which shattered the false hall of mirrors. Reality seeped through the cracks and washed away the illusion, revealing the Fractal Angel.

"Is there more you want to see?" asked Ayanami.

I shrugged. "I don't know if there's a point."

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't think that way."

"It's happening again," I said, looking to the ceiling. "How many times are we going to have to go through this?"

Ayanami reached across the armrest and took my hand in hers. "As many as it takes," she said. "I won't give up on you."

"Maybe you should," I told her, squeezing her hand back. "You don't deserve this. You shouldn't feel forced to help us like this."

"I want to."

The projector came to life again. The shot showed my father's office as the seven scientists made the case before their people. Standing front and center was Lilith, and in silence, she made her impassioned plea to the government of her kind: dare to strive for salvation for all their people, even if it would take new bodies and new worlds to do it.

"I still believe," said Ayanami—the Ayanami beside me. "Don't start thinking that our failure is inevitable. It might be, but there's no point in giving in to that. That way leads to what _she_ would do."

I sighed, and I closed my eyes. "I'm sorry, Ayanami. I thought I could come here and save you, but you don't need rescuing, do you?"

She squeezed my hand tighter. "Thank you for trying," she said, "but Ikari, you should think about something you can do, not what you can't."

What I could do, huh? What could I do that cosmic beings unstuck in space and time couldn't? I couldn't move mountains or make bridges build themselves. I couldn't see the future.

All I had was what was on my mind, what I believed in.

I stared at the screen again. The picture was black, but the projector was still spinning. Images had flashed before my eyes and gone, but the memory of them was still fresh in my mind: the memories of Asuka, Nozomi, and Misato.

"Our friends are in trouble," I told Ayanami. "Do you think we can still sit here and hope they'll pull through?"

Ayanami pulled away from me. "We'd give up a lot," she said, "to help them now."

"I have faith," I said.

The girl with the red eyes looked to me, and she smiled. "Then let's try," she said.

#

We walked back to the enemy's theater in silence, and the hooded stranger was there to greet us as soon as we pushed through the double doors.

"Shall we continue?" asked the stranger, barring our way at the top of the ramp.

"Yes, but we have terms," said Ayanami. "I allow us to intervene again, but when this is over, Ikari will be allowed to leave if he chooses."

The stranger cocked her head. "You still owe me a great deal," she warned.

"I accept that."

The screen behind the stranger came to life. The view was another overhead shot of the allied fleet—in disarray as broken ships were being evacuated. With just a twitch of the stranger's head, each of the ships vanished, wiped away like dried ink from a whiteboard.

"Your debt is paid," said the stranger. "Now, Lilith—you wish to intervene further?"

"I would speak with Nozomi Horaki," said Ayanami.

The stranger scoffed with amusement. "Very well. I agree." She stepped aside, and Nozomi—

Nozomi was there.

She sat in the front row. Her elbows were on her knees, and her hands were on the back of her head as she faced straight down.

"Nozomi?" I took the seat on her right and shook her shoulder. "Nozomi, are you with me?"

"Shut up," she said weakly. "Just be quiet."

"Ikari." Ayanami kneeled in front of Nozomi, and she caught my eye. With a twitch of her head, she indicated the theater screen.

Nozomi was there, too: vines held her up within the entry plug. They snaked around her wrists and ankles. They suspended her above the entry plug chair, with only red emergency lights to give form to the dark.

But the dark was far from silent.

"I understand your pain."

Keel Lorenz. From a campsite of makeshift tents, his Seele cohorts worked on computers or monitored a series of wires and cables that connected those computers to the vine and root system of the Crown of Thorns.

And Lorenz himself? He bombarded Nozomi with propaganda, amplified by megaphone.

"There's no use in holding on to it," Lorenz went on. "Let go of it. Be free of it. Make it all go away."

"Just shut up already," said Nozomi, curling into a tighter ball.

But for every person she asked to leave her be, there was someone else ready to speak to her.

"Hello, Nozomi?"

Like her sister.

The screen shifted scenes to the observation room in Manoah Base. Hikari Horaki sat at the corner seat by the computer and microphone. Her sister Kodama brought in a tray with two teacups, but Horaki sipped briefly and put the cup aside.

"Hello again, Nozomi," she said. "I hope you're doing well."

Nozomi scoffed, but back in the base, Horaki heard none of that. She shuddered and took a deep breath. She looked to the ceiling for a moment before continuing.

"I know I can't really imagine what you're going through right now, but I'm still here. Sister and I are still here, and we're still hoping to hear from you, to see you find your way home."

Horaki switched the microphone off and slid it aside. She sipped her tea, but the cup rattled in her hand, spilling a few drops on the observation room's tile floor. Horaki set the cup aside, too, and she wiped up the spilled droplets with a handkerchief. She breathed heavily, and when she was done with the spill, she balled up the handkerchief and clutched it in her left hand.

"We want to see you safe, and—" Her voice wavered. "No, _I_ want to see you safe. We are not done talking. We only just started, I think. We have a lot to talk about—game sprites and landscapes and all that. And how we've hurt each other. I think we should talk about that, too. I'm counting on you to come back, so we _can_ talk about that, Nozomi." Horaki's voice grew bolder, and she rose from her seat. "Promise me that, all right?"

The girl in the seat next to me was looking up. She tilted her head and stared at the screen.

"Don't be an idiot, Hikari," she said. "I can't promise you anything."

At that, the hooded stranger reached across the armrest on Nozomi's right. She took Nozomi's arm and leaned into view, saying, "That's because she doesn't understand you."

"Shut up," I snarled.

"She doesn't," said the stranger, who showed me a knowing nod before turning her attention back to Nozomi. "If she did, your sister wouldn't ask that of you."

"She's trying to understand," said Ayanami, who was still down on one knee in front of Nozomi, trying to catch her eye. "She wants to reconnect with you, and you with her. You were trying."

"You admitted there was a problem," argued the stranger. "And that problem was with you. You couldn't change the way you wanted to. Everyone has something like that in their heart—something they're blind to. Something they just can't change."

Nozomi brought her knees up, onto the seat. She turned her head to the right, away from the stranger and Ayanami, but her gaze went right through me. I held her fingers, but she didn't return the gesture. Her hand was limp.

"Nozomi…" I waved a hand in front of her eyes. "Please, I—I didn't understand you once, either. Things changed."

"You changed." Her eyes snapped to me, even as her head rested sideways on the seat. "You changed. Hikari changed, but I'm still here."

"Sad, isn't it?" remarked the stranger. "You force them to change for you, but you don't change for them. How many more do you think will try?"

Nozomi's gaze broke away from me, and her eyes slowly shut.

"No one," she said. "No one should try anymore."

On the screen, a surge of light burst from the Crown of Thorns. Keel Lorenz raised both fists in the air, and they were the last of him to hit the ground when he dissolved into LCL.

Horaki's teacup in the observation room sat half-empty next to a pile of clothes.

LCL splashed across Asuka's keyboard and monitor. A new result popped up on her screen, showing a reduction of 14 dB, far short of the target she was hoping for.

The broken ship _Ise_ sank near an unfamiliar shore—where the stranger had taken them I couldn't say. Lifeboats in the vicinity drifted as LCL pooled within them, staining empty uniforms—including a uniform with cherry blossoms stitched into the collar. A cross-shaped pendant floated in the puddle.

And Nozomi Horaki was gone. The girl in the chair next to me was nowhere to be found.

I pounded my fist on the armrest, not that it would do any good.

"Lilith," said the stranger, "our work isn't finished. I hope we can put this conflict aside now, to look to the good of our children."

Ayanami looked back at the stranger with narrowed eyes, but she nodded wordlessly.

"Good." The stranger nodded toward me. "And what of you, Shinji Ikari? Do you wish to return?"

I watched a view of the Earth from space. The planet turned. The oceans ran red. The cities and streets were inanimate, for cars sat idle, with no one at their steering wheels.

"Return to what?" I remarked.

The stranger nodded at that. "Stay if you like," she said, "but there is much work for us to do."

I nodded in turn, and as the view on the screen turned to the Black Moon collecting the souls of humanity from the oceans, from every trace of LCL on earth, I sat there and watched.

I balled my hand into a fist.

I relaxed, spreading my fingers.

And I curled them up again.

The stranger left us there to watch the world succumb to Fourth Impact, and as the wave of anti-AT energy poured over the Earth, I understood the mistake I'd made. Ayanami said it best:

"I'm not finished fighting this," she said, standing beside me. "We have time to undo it—as much time as we need."

I'd rushed headlong into the giant seeking answers and salvation. I'd played the game on her terms and seen my friends fail because of it. I couldn't afford to make that mistake again. Though it may take a day, a week, a month, or a year, I would be patient, and I would persist—not because of the aching in my heart but because I, like Ayanami, believed that the world we hoped for could become real again.

The time would come, however long it might take, to see humanity—to see my friends—assert their right to leave Instrumentality, as long as they wanted to.

And I would be watching with Ayanami in the theater of eternity for that moment to come, to help make it real.

#

The passage of time was not kind to the Earth.

The winds took away the mountains. The land became stiff and brittle, so no new peaks could be made. The oceans evaporated, with the LCL soup of humanity sheltered inside the Black Moon. The plants suffocated and died; the animals followed soon thereafter—in millions of years by one point of view, in the blink of an eye by another. And all throughout, the Earth grew hotter and hotter, for the sun loomed ever brighter in the sky.

To combat this problem, the stranger's children walked the Earth once again. She trained them and educated them in science and technology. She made them build machines—small ones at first, but each new machine begat a bigger and better one. Soon enough, machines began building other machines. Those machines, in turn, made rockets: great rockets lay on their sides at the equator and extended their nozzles into space. To cool the Earth, the stranger directed her children to move the planet itself to a larger orbit.

This idea wasn't universally agreed upon, though. Every so often, we would meet to monitor the progress of the effort. Once, I remarked,

"What about moving to a new planet? It's just going to get hotter. We'd just have to do this again anyway."

"We'd have to find a new planet again, too," said Ayanami. "Planets don't stay habitable forever."

"Relax, both of you," said the stranger, who viewed the construction effort with cool, calculating certainty. "So what if planets die?" she said. "New stars are being made. New systems are being born. We'll find those stars, and our children will survive."

"There are only so many stars," said Ayanami.

The stranger pressed her lips together for a moment. "Shinji, do you have something more constructive to add?" she asked.

"I'm wondering if we should look into terraforming Mars," I offered. "That would help buy us some time."

The stranger frowned, cocking her head as she watched the screen. "That might do for a few million years. Surface gravity isn't too much of a factor, just temperature. I'll have my children do some research into it."

At that, Ayanami said nothing. Many of our meetings were like this: the stranger took the lead in preserving the remnants of humanity, I offered some counterpoint and suggestions, and Ayanami tried to be as unhelpful as possible while insisting on being present. As she explained it once,

"We should not cooperate with her; we shouldn't humor her. We shouldn't help her in any way. This is her doing. She should be responsible for it—by herself."

I didn't see it that way. Mankind no longer walked the Earth, but it still existed in a way. They were still alive, and you could see what was in their hearts. On occasion, I'd gone so far as to peer into their dreams, but I quickly realized that would do me no good. The temptation to check in on people I knew was too great, and the pain of not being able to reach them was even greater. The last thing I needed was to see Asuka with a dream facsimile of me.

Regardless, there were still people there. It was our duty to take care of them so that, one day, they'd be able to walk freely again.

But I was largely alone in this feeling. Ayanami was willing to stonewall the stranger, hoping to coerce her into giving in.

And there were others in the theater complex who didn't care on way or the other.

"We have all of history at our disposal, and you three concern yourselves so much with the fates of our children."

That was Kaworu Nagisa—or Adam, who still used Kaworu's face when he spoke to me. Kaworu had been a friend of mine for a brief time, and I treasured his affectionate nature. Kaworu liked to inhabit the theater across the hall from the stranger, entertaining himself with topics as varied as the Parisian art scene during the Vietnam War and the oral traditions of Australian aboriginals.

"Can't you appreciate what beautiful things the Lilin—and all our children—accomplished?" he once asked.

When Ayanami and I tired of the stranger, we sometimes visited Kaworu in that adjacent theater. I learned a lot about history from those visits—history of the future as well as the past. Kaworu, Ayanami, and I watched the Milky Way and Andromeda collide over the course of hundreds of millions of years. It was beautiful and breathtaking, to be sure.

But I never felt fully at ease in those moments because Kaworu wasn't alone, either. In the back of his theater were the others—the other four scientists. They had long ago lapsed into silence, dressed in the same white satin that the stranger wore. These impassive observers watched everything without complaint or amusement. Their presence was a sign—inescapable and unflinching—that the stranger's crusade had not begun with humanity. Rather, it had ended with us instead.

And so, the future had begun. Kaworu spent the future scouring the universe for strange events or examples of ingenuity. For Ayanami, the future was a time to resist and wear down the stranger through obstinance. For the rest of the seven, it could be spent only in silence—that way, the future would be someone else's problem.

They all had their opinions, and I found their approaches unsatisfying—so much so that, at times, I found myself gravitating toward to stranger instead.

You might find that idea appalling—and I won't say it wasn't—but unlike Ayanami, Kaworu, or the rest of the seven, the stranger took the initiative to safeguard humanity for the long term. Her children's efforts to research solutions and implement them were only part of that. Day in and day out, the stranger watched the future of planet Earth, taking notes on what might befall mankind next.

"Don't be fooled by her," Ayanami had warned me once. "She may think she's acting in the interests of our children, but she isn't. I know this well; you should, too."

It was a difficult lesson to forget. Every few million years, a remnant of mankind would emerge from the sea. Sometimes Misato would be there; other times, Asuka or Nozomi. The stranger would tolerate them for a few millennia, but when their number reached a critical threshold, she'd raise her faceless warriors from the ocean and liquefy the rebels by force. Over the last hundred million years, only a handful of such uprisings had taken place. The stranger thought that was good; people were learning not to resist her.

Time passed, as much as it could pass in that place. One "hour" felt like the next, and you could just as easily look in on Roman gladiators as you could the fall of the dinosaurs or the development of the first computer. Time passed, and I pondered Ayanami's point of view. What kind of person would come all that way—across the stars—to force Instrumentality on mankind? What kind of person would do that and then continue to watch over the LCL soup to make sure it never simmered, boiled, or froze?

So it came to be that, when I grew frustrated with Ayanami's stubbornness or Kaworu's indulgences, I would spend time with the stranger, anticipating threats to mankind—and hoping that a little insight into her would help me find a way to change our situation. Simply resisting her had not been enough. If we meant to bring humanity back from Instrumentality, the stranger would have to agree to it.

But the stranger was happy with how things were going. She too spied on humanity's dreams, as well as the dreams of her children and the others', and she was pleased. "They want for nothing," she told me one time, as we sat together in her theater. "We need to make sure that doesn't change."

We needed to make sure that didn't change, even if we were treated to watching Misato take an illusion of Kaji on a moonlit drive. Humanity should always be free to bring the dead back to life in their dreams—that's what we should protect?

"What gave you this idea?" I asked the stranger that day, as we sat in the front row of her theater. "Why Instrumentality?"

The stranger shrugged the question off. "We've always had the ability to do it. It's an essential safeguard against existential threats. The souls of my people were transported in a state of Instrumentality."

"That's not what I'm asking you," I said.

The stranger peered at me, despite the opaque hood in front of her eyes. "No, it's not, is it? Well, tell me then: what _are_ you asking, Shinji?"

I sighed, and I held on to the black plastic armrest. The rough texture of it was an illusion, too, but it was still comforting to me—a distraction from the tumult of my own thoughts.

"I came here," I said at last, "because I thought Ayanami had signed up for an eternal burden, for something she shouldn't want." I looked to the stranger. "Now I see you're the same. You like being here, don't you?"

"This is what I pledged I would do," she said. "Lilith and I both. We have differences of opinion—for now. I'm confident she'll change her mind in time. I would not choose to be anywhere else."

"Why?" I asked. "I mean, it needs to be done, but—I don't understand." I gestured toward the screen—to a view from outer space of planet Earth, desolate and brown, for even its red seas had to be sheltered from the sun's heat. "Why this way? Didn't you want us to be something more?"

The stranger's expression soured at that. "Wanting something and believing it can happen are different things."

"How's that?"

Her lips pressing together, the stranger rose. "Let me change the film," she said. "Lilith knows all about this, of course. Even so, she refuses to listen to reason. I hope you'll approach this with an open mind, hm?"

She headed upstairs, to the projector room, and she began sorting through the boxes and boxes of reels. There was, truly, a tremendous amount of film in that place. The few times I'd been there, I'd marveled at the collection. Each box seemed bottomless, and the reels you cast aside just disappeared instead of piling up.

The stranger set a reel on the projector, and a new film began.

The film began playing out like a documentary. The narration was in Hikari Horaki's voice. "Once upon a time," said the narrator, "there was a woman, a scientist. She was sent to shepherd the souls of her people to a new world, so they could begin life anew."

An image of Horaki appeared on the screen. She stood in the shadow of a red cross, at the foot of a lake of LCL.

The scientist raised her children well, according to the narrator. She groomed them to be masters of their own planet. They became the dominant race over the course of millennia upon millennia. They conquered the limits of their bodies, building great machines and computers. They began to play with biology itself, augmenting their bodies and living longer and fuller lives.

But they were still human, in a way.

"Like all living creatures, however," said the narrator, "the scientist's children had a base impulse to compete with one another when facing scarcity. Necessary though it may have been to survive, such an impulse is inherently destructive: survival by killing those one competes against. The Zenunim were no different in this way. They destroyed one another in great numbers, leveraging their brilliant minds and machines to destroy as much as they wanted."

And we saw it. A montage of destruction played out for us, ranging from mushroom clouds to deformed and warped corpses. Masses of alien creatures fell to the ground and withered from disease. The soil itself was blighted, and crops were burned in huge swaths.

Her children waged war on one another. They wielded disease and pestilence to lay waste to their enemies. The scientist—depicted in the form of Horaki—walked among them and witnessed the destruction. She met her children dying and suffering at their brothers' hands. They were going hungry. They couldn't find shelter.

"They couldn't all be saved, so she did as her brothers and sisters had originally done," said the narrator. "She liquefied them."

She liquefied them all. She turned that planet's oceans to blood. She extracted the souls of the guilty and the innocent alike.

And she was supposed to start over, but she didn't. She kept them all in her Black Moon. She imprisoned them in a cage without pain for a billion years. She stood watch over them—doing nothing, saying nothing—from her throne inside the Geofront, sitting in the shadow of a cross.

But there were people who wouldn't leave her be.

"The others found out about her decision—her abomination," said the narrator. "They tried to persuade her to reconsider. They failed. And when they failed, they brought their own children to her world, hoping to force her hand."

The scientist raised her children from the LCL. Like a necromancer animating skeletons, she shaped her children according to her needs. She grew out their fingers, making them sharp and deadly. She warped their faces into bony, purple masks, erasing all individuality from them. She directed her legions to build weapons and spacecraft.

She made them make war on one of the White Moons. They built Eva of their own and vanquished the Angels defending the Moon. She entered the White Moon herself and found its occupant—Toji, in this depiction—incapacitated by the Spear of Longinus. He stood defeated, but that wasn't enough for her.

She merged with him.

And she saw everything. Past and future became the same to her. From that moment, a new creature was born, and though she had the same face as the scientist from before, she was different. She walked the halls of the theater of eternity as effortlessly as you or I could stroll along a beach.

She saw that the others would come for her in time—and that she would defeat them and take them, too.

"Well, Shinji?" The stranger poked her head out of the projector room. "Do you see now? Do you understand?"

The image froze. The woman with the shape and face of Horaki was juxtaposed against a backdrop of dozens of panels, each with a glimpse of the past or future.

"Maybe," I said, "but I don't think we're finished, are we?"

"What more could you wish to know?"

I scoffed. "I see what the others did, but why us? Why humanity?"

The stranger gave me a single nod, and she fell back into the projector room. The film resumed. On the screen, the girl with the face of Hikari Horaki led her Geofront to the stars. She brought Angels and her children to the other worlds. They were legion in number. They spared no one.

"She found the others' children wanting, too," said the narrator. "They fought. They destroyed. The smart ones inflicted diseases upon themselves or others. The powerful ones destroyed whole continents and oceans in battle. She claimed them all because that was the only recourse—the only way to save them from themselves. Humanity was no different."

The film turned to a space-based view of Earth, and on top of that played footage of wars from the ancient history to the present: from Rome vs. Carthage to Hitler vs. Chamberlain to Katsuragi vs. the Chinese navy. And even though that only scratched the surface of human warfare, there was plenty more violence and suffering to go around: criminal gangs, assassinations, forced prostitution and rape—the montage went on. You could spend a billion years watching people hurt each other; you still wouldn't be finished.

The scene shifted to planet Earth as it stood in the present: dry, with its oceans dwindling, as the Black Moon hovered over the surface.

"There's no suffering here, Shinji," said the stranger from the projector room. "There's no pain. There's no anger. Everyone exists; they know what's in each other's hearts, and they are free to dream as they choose. This is the way our children were meant to be; it's the only way they _can_ be."

"So that's it?" I said. I turned in my seat, looking up at the projector. "That's all humanity and everyone else will come to?"

"What else would you have them do?" asked the stranger.

"Something—anything!" I cried. "You 'saved' them all for nothing!"

"Not for nothing," said the stranger. "At least I have saved them."

"That's not enough!"

The screen turned white, and the stranger came down the side steps. "They're alive, and they feel no pain," she said. "Isn't that enough?"

I stared at her, gawking. I slowly shook my head.

The stranger sighed in turn. "Keep thinking that way if you like," she said, "but there are still challenges for our charges." She turned her head slightly—a gesture that would've met my gaze, if I could've seen her eyes behind that satin hood. "Do you want to wither here for the rest of time, Shinji? Or do you want to be part of the solution?"

At that, I had no answer. My mouth hung open, and I watched the stranger go.

Part of the solution for what?

#

You know, I'd never been a particularly religious person, but I wasn't that into science, either. The questions they might've clashed on weren't things I was well-versed in, but having all eternity to ponder such things makes you interested in a hurry, oddly enough.

I trudged upstairs to the projector room, and I quickly found what I was interested in: the future.

In the future, mankind would stay liquefied. The three of us—Ayanami, the stranger, and I—would direct the Black Moon to gather all human souls and zip from one planet to the next every few billion years, looking for habitable conditions that made maintenance of the Black Moon easier.

That would go on and on, for a million billion years.

But eventually, the stuff stars run on would be consumed wholly. The stars burn themselves out. Star systems like ours, whatever should be left of it by then, would become unstable. Planets get flung away from their stars. Stars get flung away from their galaxies, all the while dimming to nothing.

And in the end, the very end—billions upon billions upon billions of years ahead, and even more that I can't write or say, atoms themselves would cease to be, for the protons making them up would decay, leaving us with nothing like the world we know.

That would be the end. The Black Moon would fall apart. The LCL comprising humanity and its brothers and sisters would crumble. Any memorial to humanity would be erased by then. The souls of mankind would scatter to the intergalactic winds. There is no such thing, then, as something eternal.

Something about that resonated with me. I'd often felt that I wouldn't make a difference, that my life didn't matter. It all returns to nothing. You could argue that none of us really matter.

Or maybe we all matter about the same.

Because after all, we're all headed for the same fate.

Those thoughts raced through my head as inscrutable and cold as the 3-degree microwave background that permeates the universe, and I found no relief from those ideas on my own. Instead, Ayanami came to me offering comfort and relief. She found me in that theater, having looked for the stranger and me. Ayanami's gaze was everpresent—she already knew what the stranger had shown me. She sat at my side, offering a hand in support.

"I'm sorry," she said to me. "You don't deserve to be caught in this."

Not like any of that was her fault. No, I told her as much. The weight of watching millions of years of human history play out had been difficult but bearable. It was the future that frightened me.

"I just wonder," I said—to her, to the blank screen in front of me, and to the theater as a whole—"what's the point of all this? What is the point of being here?" I sighed, and I slapped a hand on the armrest. "I spent so long moping around, and then just before the end, I really tried to get my head right—to be better. But it's all going to go away." I pointed at the blank screen. "Just like that."

"It is," said Ayanami, squeezing my hand tighter. "Is there something you want to achieve, even knowing that?"

I rubbed my forehead, at a loss, and Ayanami went on.

"There is only so much free energy in the universe," she said. "Everything people do takes away from it. Eating takes away from it. Sleeping takes away from it. Making love takes away from it. That energy turns to entropy and is lost forever. That's true no matter what it was used for."

"So it _is_ pointless then," I concluded.

"No." Ayanami turned to me, and she smiled. "Everything people do takes away from free energy and turns it to entropy, but we can value certain actions more than others. We can value joy. We can value happiness. We can value the growth and understanding that makes people less destructive, reckless, or violent. We can value acts that promote communication between people." She held my hand and hers up, above the armrest. "There is only so much free energy in the universe," she said again. "We should choose to spend it well."

"Even if nothing comes of it?" I asked.

"Especially if nothing comes of it."

I shook my head and sighed. It's not every day you come to believe that the future is a pointless thing. Telling me—and all mankind—to live for the journey we were on didn't seem that appealing. If anything, it made me feel like humanity was the rubber in a conveyor belt: we would go 'round and 'round for eons to come until we wore out. And we were supposed to like it.

That didn't sit well with me, and Ayanami's determination to pursue it was puzzling. After all this time, how could she bear to follow such a path? There's looking at a long view and trying to see beyond the horizon by standing on the tips of your toes—that's what Ayanami was doing. I asked her about that, and she said,

"I don't like it, either, but it's the only way I see forward for people, and it feels like _me_." She put a hand to her heart. "It feels like what I felt when I started this. I wanted to save people. I didn't want them to suffer. I wanted them all to have a chance. This is like that. To me, the other choice is despair." She met my gaze. "Don't think that way, Ikari. Work for people. Work for your friends and hold on to what that feels like. If you do that, you will never despair." Her eyes flickered to the ramp that led out of the theater. "Not the way she did."

 _She_ gave in to her despair, and—believing it to be pragmatism—put us on this doomed train, bound for the end of the universe. She lost faith in her children as well as Lilith's.

But _she_ wasn't the only one who'd given up hope in some way.

"She was your friend once," I said to Ayanami. "Wasn't she?"

Ayanami flinched, and she let go of my hand, sitting straighter in her seat. "At one time," she said. "No more. She's made humanity into something that isn't human anymore. She can't take that back."

"Why not?" I said, turning toward her and leaning over the armrest. "What purpose does it serve to leave that alone? You used to talk to her, right? She was your friend."

"Not anymore. She isn't who she used to be."

"Neither are you, right? I was there; you showed me. You used to be different. I wouldn't give anything for you to be something other than who you are now, but I also know that there's something about you now that came from who you used to be. How much you care about what you're doing—how much you care for a friend—that hasn't changed. You showed me that; you showed me when you saved me from that bullet. You show me that even now because you're sitting here. You didn't give up on me even when I was pathetic, even when I lost my way."

Ayanami looked aside. "You're different from her."

"Am I?" I put my fist down on the armrest, and it rattled. "I wanted something for people but didn't believe I could make a difference. She spends every day here watching humanity to make sure it's not destroyed by a rogue meteor or a supernova. It's distasteful and wrong what she forced on people, but there is still something worth talking to. You can't—" I shuddered, and I took a moment to catch my breath. "You can't keep sitting here in silence, like protesting her existence is going to change things."

Ayanami looked at me from the side. Her mouth hung open, and after a few moments, she looked ahead again, thinking deeply about what I'd said.

"You might be right," she said at last. "Ikari," she asked timidly, "would you come with me?"

I got up. I'd followed her to the end of time already. I would've followed her to the underworld if she'd asked it of me.

#

We found the stranger in a nearby theater. She'd turned her attentions to a stellar-mass black hole that would wander through the solar system in a few million years' time. "It could be a big problem for Earth," said the stranger. "Maybe we can all act like adults and do something about it instead of pouting, hm?"

Ayanami and I stopped at the top of the entrance ramp, and Ayanami stared the stranger down, saying a name that hadn't been spoken in over five billion years:

"Eisheth."

The figure in the white satin hood—with gloves extending from her fingertips to beyond the sleeves of her robe—cocked her head and looked at us. All of that was a ruse, of course. This vaguely human figure, whose eyes could never be seen, didn't correspond to any person in existence. It was an image for my benefit and nothing more. It didn't belong to her.

It was not the true face of Eisheth, but it was meant to represent her in my mind.

The hooded stranger—Eisheth—met Ayanami and me at the end of the ramp. She looked up to Ayanami. "What do you want, Lilith?"

"To end this," said Ayanami. "You've forced people into a world of fantasy. Stop it. Let them be."

"This is the only way your children and mine can be protected from themselves," said Eisheth. "I will do no such thing."

"You want to believe that, but it's not true. You're lying to yourself. You've always been that way." Ayanami moved closer, reducing the gap between them to half a step. "Do you remember how you were? You kept me in check when my passion would get the best of me. You tempered my enthusiasm. You kept my expectations realistic. You made sure my hope didn't get the best of me."

"You were always too wide-eyed, too gung-ho about inserting yourself where you thought you were needed." Eisheth pressed her lips together in disappointment. "I'd hoped over the last five billion years you would've learned to pace yourself."

"I hoped you wouldn't forget that you were the same."

"Me? Hardly!"

"You were." Ayanami waved a hand, and the theater's screen came to life. There, an image of Hikari Horaki made a presentation before a crowded room. The film was silent, but she carried herself with conviction, certainty, and courage. "You didn't let yourself get carried away with hope," Ayanami went on, "but you felt it, didn't you? You had great hopes for us, for the people we meant to shepherd to new worlds."

"And look how that turned out," said Eisheth, who waved her hand in turn and blanked the screen. "Our own people couldn't overcome their worse impulses. So much for the grand experiment of life!"

"I'm sorry, Eisheth."

Eisheth took a step back, eyeing Ayanami from the side—as much as she could with the piece of satin cloth covering her eyes. "Sorry for what?"

"You were there for me when I faced a moment of doubt." Ayanami bowed her head, looking away. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you."

Eisheth stiffened, and she trotted away, going back to her seat. "That's in the past," she said.

"It's not." Ayanami followed her, standing in front of Eisheth's seat. "Our children have made mistakes. So have I. So have you. Don't deprive them of the chance to learn from that. Don't deprive us of that chance, too."

"They failed before," said Eisheth. "What makes you think they can change, given another chance?"

"We can help them—together. Please, Eisheth."

Ayanami offered Eisheth a hand—a trembling, wavering hand. Eisheth stared at her for a time before sighing.

"You still wear your heart too much on your sleeve, even now, Lilith." She took Ayanami by the wrist, steadying Ayanami, and Ayanami took Eisheth by the wrist in turn. Ayanami pulled Eisheth from her seat, and Eisheth's gaze fell upon me. "Shinji Ikari!"

I flinched. "Uh, yes?"

"Lilith believes your brothers and sisters still stand to learn something," she said. "And she thinks they _can_ , if given another chance. Do you agree?"

"I do," I said, standing straight and tall. "Absolutely."

Eisheth tilted her head. "I'm not convinced."

I made a noise in disbelief. Ayanami began to accost Eisheth as well, but Eisheth went on:

"Prove it to me," she said. She waved her hand over the film screen. The blank white image morphed…

Into Terminal Dogma, into the chamber with the white giant sitting within the LCL lake. Captain Suzuki and her SDF team hid behind barricades and traded gunfire with Seele militants.

"If you think they can be better," said the stranger, "prove it to me."

She gestured to the screen with her arm, and I stepped up, right to the screen's surface. Bizarrely, the light of the projector passed through me, casting an even picture without shadows or gaps. I raised a hand and touched the screen surface, and it stuck to my fingers like glue.

It pulled on me.

I looked back at Ayanami. She nodded. She was smiling.

And I smiled, too.

I stepped forward, into the screen, and I sank within it.

I sank within, and I fell.

I tumbled into the LCL lake. I splashed, and I floundered. I fought my way to the surface and coughed.

"Ikari!" An SDF sergeant pulled me onto an inflatable raft. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Where did you go?"

I looked up to the face of the white giant. It was static, immobile, and implacable, except for one thing:

Its eyes were fixed upon me.

I chuckled to myself, and I brushed some of the goo from my vest. "I'm fine," I told the sergeant. "Don't worry about me. Let's go save the world."

#

In the bowels of the Geofront, the sergeant paddled our inflatable boat back to the central walkway—the main path to the white giant. SDF personnel were holding off Seele and alien forces at the entrances to the chamber, and two men guarded the rectangular array of N2 warheads at the end of the walkway, closest to the giant's body. More of the warheads had been tied to the beast's legs as well.

It was all still there, just as I'd remembered it.

But this time, I was there, too, and I had a chance to change it.

I asked the sergeant for a radio, and I spoke with Captain Suzuki. There would be no point in destroying the chamber, I told her. The giant would, more than likely, escape unharmed. Instead, I had information that would be worth sharing with Misato and the rest of the fleet. Suzuki was skeptical of the idea, though: the corridor back to the helicopter was no longer secure. We would have to fight our way out. The odds weren't good, and Suzuki was still tempted to try blowing up the chamber, not believing what I'd told her.

In frustration, I shot back, "We've got sixteen warheads, the closest things to nukes anyone would dare use, and we can't fight our way out of this?"

There was a brief silence on the other end. Then, Captain Suzuki said, "We'll make something happen."

Suzuki's men redeployed the N2 weapons at the furthest point from our escape route. They dismantled the N2 weapons individually, separating their primer charges from the oxidation fuel. Without that fuel, the most powerful non-nuclear weapons in existence were reduced to firecrackers—enough to burn and stun our enemies, but not enough to collapse the entire chamber and a quarter of the Geofront on top of us.

We left the giant's chamber with the primer charges providing cover. They went off in sequence—a thunderous applause for our efforts—and drenched the LCL lake in fire. After that, we fought our way out. Seele militants entrenched themselves in the network of corridors, pinning us down within a few turns of the giant's chamber. With fire and smoke licking our backs, Suzuki ordered a bull rush of a flank position. A pair of grenades softened up one corridor, and the SDF members attacked from two sides, neutralizing the enemy.

From there, we scampered back to the opening in the Geofront's hull. We attached ropes to our belts and went back up to the helicopter in groups of two, and rode back to _Ise_. For my part, I didn't even bother getting out of combat gear. I needed to talk to Misato—to tell her what I had seen, to warn her of what would happen if we made the same mistakes as before.

Misato wasn't about to wait, though. She took me aside in the fleet operations room and demanded an explanation. "What did you think you were doing, Shinji?" she said to me. "Getting yourself stuck in that thing? Did you lose your mind?"

I winced. "I'm sorry; I'm sorry, but there's no time for that. Admiral McNamara is going to call—"

"Shinji." The hooded stranger, Eisheth, called out to me; she watched from the hatch back to the corridor. Her satin hood blocked all view of her eyes, but the direction of her gaze was clear. Her lips were pressed together, and she shook her head but once.

And Ayanami was there, too, standing right behind her.

"Prove that people can be better," said Ayanami.

"Shinji?" asked Misato, her voice growing concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said, meeting her gaze again. "Sorry, I thought I heard something. Listen, there's something I need to ask you to do. Can you get me a line to Asuka? Something I saw when I merged with the giant might help her."

"Of course, but—"

"General," interrupted Hyuga, holding a phone in his hand, "it's McNamara on the line."

Misato looked at the phone, then at me. "All right," she said, "and get Shinji a link back to Manoah Base."

"Misato," I said before she put the phone to her ear, "we're in this together. Our friends have doubts sometimes. That's as much the enemy as what we're fighting out there, isn't it?"

Frowning, Misato took me by the shoulder and guided me in the direction of an empty station, where Hyuga had one of the communications personnel get me on the line with Japan. While the link was being reestablished, Misato had her conversation with the American, Admiral McNamara. The Disc Angel was having its way with the fleet, and McNamara, I presume, wanted to withdraw and hope for a more covert strike on Seele. As Misato and the admiral exchanged opinions, I kept only one ear of my headset on, listening to Misato with the other.

"Hey, Shinji!" came Asuka's voice over the headset. "What the hell were you thinking? I'm down here one minute working on the engine, and I hear you went inside that creature?"

"I'm sorry; I'm sorry," I said, wincing. "I'm sorry I left, but I'm back now. I'm back, and I'm not going anywhere. I promised, right? So don't worry about it. I want to hear about you. How's it going over there?"

"I'm working like hell," she said, sighing. "I feel like I'm getting close, but I'm not there yet."

"Asuka," I said.

"Yeah?"

I held on to the headset cord. "Are you working with people?" I asked. "Are you talking?"

"Yeah…kinda."

I raised both eyebrows. "Asuka."

"I'm really close on this."

"Talk to people, Asuka," I told her. "Talk to them. Sometimes they have good ideas; sometimes your ideas are what _they_ need to get things done. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course," she said. "I can do anything."

I laughed. "I know it. Thanks. And Asuka? I love you."

A pause. "I love you, too, Shinji. See you soon?"

"You bet," I said, beaming, and I cut the line. I took a look around the room: Misato was still talking with Admiral McNamara on the main line, trying to convince him that they were already 80% through the Geofront's hull, so why not continue?

But the admiral wasn't having it. The Disc Angel was free to roam about the fleet, and he knew well that they'd be torn apart if they didn't run away. Yet Misato wouldn't let it be, either:

"I would rather try," she said. "We have a chance here, Admiral."

What she heard on the other end of the line was far from agreement. Misato scowled, and she pounded her fist on the table. Her eyes flickered about the room as she searched for an answer.

Her eyes met mine, and I nodded at her.

"Then my decision is made, too, John," she said. "My fleet will be staying. We can break through if you hold the line with us. We're going to try. If we fall, then perhaps we'll have bought the rest of you time to regroup, but that's a pyrrhic victory at best. Stand with us, Admiral. Please. I need you."

A pause. Misato listened. Hyuga, holding a clipboard, leaned closer to try to hear.

"I see," said Misato. "Thank you." She put the phone down gently, and she gave Hyuga an affirming nod. "Step up the bombardment. Run the guns as hot as they can go. We're not going to have very much longer before we're sinking. Get our choppers ready. It's time to take the fight to Seele!"

And so, even as the helicopter destroyer _Ise_ steamed at full speed away from the Angel, sailors held fast on its guns and missile launch bays. They unleashed hell on the Geofront, bombarding the surface with explosive shells and warheads. Other Japanese ships in the armada kept up the attack, and that one spot on the Geofront's exterior pulsed with flame.

But they weren't the only ones. American fighter jets and Chinese destroyers peppered the target spot with bombs and missiles. The international fleet extended to the horizon, like an auditorium full of delinquent students lobbing spitballs at a stage. Each attack was small and trivial, and yet the combined force was building.

"How close are we?" asked Misato, who paced about the fleet control room deliberately.

Another officer listened in on a headset. "Lookouts report we are—we are through the primary superstructure, General!"

Misato pumped her fist. "Advise the captain; we no longer have business here, so let's get moving! Where is the Angel?"

"Bearing 090 at 1500 meters—1200—1050. Shipboard defenses are acquiring target."

The ship rattled. Fire from the smaller point-defense guns rattled the ship.

"No effect," said the officer. "Negligible impact."

I squeezed the armrest on my chair. I wasn't at a sensor station; we were deaf and blind in the fleet control room. Other people had to tell us what was going on outside—what they heard, what they saw.

Misato shadowed a radar operator, and as the dot representing the Angel bore down on the center of the plot, she shot me a look. "It's all right," she said to the room. "We did what we were here to do."

A warning alarm sounded through the room and the hallways. Maritime SDF members secured themselves in their seats, and two men shut and tightened the exit hatch.

CRUNCH! The ship lurched and shook. The lights went out, and in the faint glow of red emergency lights, Misato was thrown against a plotting table.

The next few moments were chaotic. Our consoles were dark. Hyuga got on the sound-powered phone, trying to get a situation report from the bridge. As the deck swayed beneath us, the word that came in was clear:

"We're abandoning ship," said Hyuga. "Let's go; rafts are in the water!"

We moved as a group to the flight deck, navigating darkened halls by flashlight as needed. _Ise_ had been split in two, and while the two halves were still above water, the sea poured in through the gash. The forward half, which we were on, started pitching upward at the front.

When we made it to the flight deck, where SDF members detached cannisters from the side of the ship. When each cylinder hit the water, it unfurled into a self-inflating raft. SDF members lowered ladders from the side, and the crew began climbing down, but Misato refused to descend. "If the captain goes down with the ship, how can I leave?" she remarked. She assigned Hyuga to make sure I got to safety—kicking and screaming if it had to be. I did no such thing, but still, I stayed with her, just for a moment, even as the line to the nearby ladder cleared.

"Don't leave me again, Misato," I told her, holding on to the railing as the ship listed further.

She smiled, and she leaned over to kiss me on the forehead. "There's not a chance of that," she said. "I've worked too hard to win this thing and not enjoy what comes next."

"You'll enjoy it?" I asked her.

Misato made a wishy-washy sound. "Hm, I'm not sure I will," she said, shrugging, and she shot me a coy smile. "But I think I'll give it a shot." She slapped me on the side of my arm and pointed at my nose. "Now go! We can do the rest when I get back."

Still, I hesitated at the top of the ladder, looking on as Misato spoke with one of the MSDF officers to figure out who still needed evacuating and what else should be done. I'm not sure I would've climbed down at all if not for who I saw behind Misato, watching over her: Ayanami. The MSDF crewmen didn't notice her, but she was truly serene as she stood there, and though she followed Misato around the flight deck, Ayanami shot me a look and a nod. I smiled in turn, and I went down the escape ladder without further delay.

Life rafts in MSDF left something to be desired: they were entirely inflatable fabric, altogether too squishy and small to put my mind at ease. The raft bobbed next to the sinking ship with no obvious way to get clear. Two of the MSDF crewmen tied together their shoes and slapped at the water to put some distance between us and the ship, fearing that the downward pull of the hull would draw us in.

Aside from that, all we could do was sit, wait, and listen. One of the MSDF members set up a portable radio, which we monitored for rescue instructions. The remaining ships in the fleet didn't want to get close enough to pluck us out of the water until the Angel could be diverted, though, so in the meantime, we tuned into the mission frequencies, and I heard a familiar voice:

"Eva Unit-14, Eva Unit-14, this is Manoah Base via _Makinami_ , do you read me?"

Asuka. I looked to the rising sun, and I laughed. I laughed for joy and relief, as if her voice and the light of the sun could carry my worries away.

"Either way," Asuka went on, "sit tight, Nozomi. We're coming to get you. We're going to get you a chance to break free. Can you hear it? They're coming."

I heard them—the thunderous roars of helicopter rotors. The Disc Angel may have ravaged the fleet, but our people were already on the way. A horde of helicopters made for the Black Moon, and though the winds buffeted and threw them about, they rose above the smoke and flames of the bombardment zone. They darted into the breach, unloading troops inside the structure.

I watched them go, and I sat back in the life raft. They were on a mission—a mission I could only watch from that seat. Reaching Nozomi and stopping Lorenz were their concern. I'd have to settle for conserving water and meal packets while we waited for rescue.

Or so I thought.

"Shinji." The hooded stranger—the human and yet inhuman image that Eisheth used for herself—walked alongside our life raft. She strolled casually above the water, watching me from behind a hood that wouldn't show her eyes. "You're not finished here, are you?" she asked.

I looked around the raft. No one else was paying attention. No one else even saw her. I looked where her eyes would've been, if not for the hood, and shook my head.

"I didn't think so," she said. "Let's take you to your friend."

The world warped around me, stretching like the view of a magnifying glass mixed with a kaleidoscope. A force pulled me upright from my seat, and I wobbled as some ground came up from beneath me. Machine guns rattled off bullets, and the crack of each round's firing pounded in my ears. The air was hot and smoky; I wafted some fumes away from my nose. A hand yanked me by the shoulder.

"Ikari, what the hell are you doing here?"

Captain Suzuki. There was no rest for her; she and her men disembarked from a helicopter. Two dozen helicopters had landed in the gash the fleet had made. It was their beachhead. The troop helicopters rolled in, and attack helicopters and jets controlled the airspace within the chamber—the open environment of the Geofront. The ground was grassy, and though the vegetation was largely blue in color, the sense of nature was strong.

Realizing where I was, I laughed, and I shrugged my shoulders. "I was sent here," I told the captain, "to see Nozomi."

The stern and stoic Captain Suzuki put a hand to my head and ruffled my hair. From anyone else, it might have been a cute gesture. From her, it was a warning. "This is not a helmet," she said. "Stay back; stay out of trouble. You understand?"

I nodded. "Lead the way, and I'll follow."

Suzuki pawned me off on one of her fireteams, and the company moved ahead. Helicopter gunships had established a perimeter, bombarding Seele militants with missiles and gunfire. The rest of the expeditionary force touched down within the perimeter, amid scorched grasses and charred trees. The vegetation was unearthly: blue blades of grass split into four leaves in a diamond-shaped pattern, and the trees were bluish-white as well.

But we weren't there for a tour, nor to study plants. The vanguard of the invasion force stomped that blue grass underfoot as they established a firing perimeter.

That was good enough to hold the Seele riflemen at bay, but making the way forward was more difficult: the militants peppered us with mortars and grenades. While the attack helicopters beat them back far enough for us to hold the beachhead, that was about as far as we could go—with conventional weapons, anyway.

I stayed far enough back to only feel the ripples and reverberations of explosions; Suzuki's men surely wouldn't have let me get any closer. While we were waiting for a clear moment, I tuned my radio to the plugcom frequency, and I slipped an earpiece in to listen.

"Nozomi," said Asuka on the radio, "it's Soryu. Hope you're listening; we need you now. I know Lorenz has tried to put all kinds of crap in your head. We're going to buy you a little time without him. If you can use that and get to our guys—so much the better, huh? So listen up, because we've got something for you: Maya, Tezuka, and all of us. You ready for that?"

A slight mumble—a groan came through on the line.

"I'll take that as a yes," said Asuka, laughing to herself. "Okay, Nozomi; okay, Unit-14. You're not gonna have forever, but here's a little weed trimming. Try to walk; try to move around. Try to—"

A roar echoed through the Geofront. I put on some binoculars, and I saw it: Unit-14—the beast built like a bear, in green and black armor—ripped itself free of the vines. And I'll be damned if I didn't pump my fist and cry out at that—even as Suzuki and her men tried to keep me quiet.

"Soryu…" Nozomi's voice was weak and breathy. "Stop talking so much. Where—where do I need to be?"

"Waypoint's up," said Asuka. "Head for the breach; we'll get you out of here. Go!"

The husky bear trudged toward us. It swatted Seele grenadiers and armored vehicles away like ants and beetles. Its footsteps rattled the ground.

But those footsteps were heavy—so heavy. Even with parts and pieces of the Crown ripped away, a great mass still clung to the Eva's head. The Eva stumbled forward like a baby taking its first steps.

And like any child, it fell.

It tripped and skidded on the alien landscape. It plowed face-first into the blue grass. It slipped and stumbled as it tried to get back up, but the earth was soft and wet there. Mud stuck to the Eva's feet and hands, and the artificial soil gave way under the slightest force.

Captain Suzuki touched her earpiece for a moment, and she yelled to get the attention of her men. "Hey, hey, this is it!" she said. "That's our pilot out there, and we need to go get her. Let's go, people!"

With cover from the helicopters, we scampered over the open fields to where Unit-14 had fallen. Missile impacts kicked up dirt and flame, and our footing was unsteady on the wet ground, but we ran ahead anyway, not minding the shaking of the floor or the stray bullets from the last few Seele survivors.

One of them was just as courageous as us, if for the wrong reasons: Keel Lorenz.

"They can't reach you!" he cried on a megaphone, running after the fallen Eva. "They can't bring you back! They are dying every second; let go before more are hurt!"

"I think that's enough of that!" said one of Suzuki's men, and a group of eight surrounded Lorenz and his team.

Lorenz scoffed. "Am I supposed to be afraid of guns?"

"It wouldn't do much good if you're dead before Fourth Impact, Chairman," said Captain Suzuki, who trained her rifle on him personally. "You want to put that megaphone down now?"

Snarling, Lorenz tossed the device aside and put his hands in the air. His followers did the same.

But Unit-14 wasn't free just yet. The Crown's thorny tendrils coursed through the Eva's body, tying it down like a rabbit in a snare.

And I ran after it.

"Ikari!" cried one of Suzuki's sergeants. "Stay back!"

I kept running. "Asuka, it's me!" I called over the radio. "Is there anything else you can do?"

"Sorry, that's all for now," she said. "Tezuka and Maya are working on it. I'm gonna go help them out, so I might not be very responsive. Good luck!"

That meant it was up to us.

I ran up to the Eva's body, past the line of Seele operatives who had surrendered their weapons and kneeled down before the international forces. I crouched next to the Eva's head—the black and green facemask with two rows of eyes—and I keyed up the radio. "Nozomi? Nozomi, are you with me?"

Muffled groans and static came through the line. The Eva looked at me, but its gaze wavered. It spasmed and howled. The tendrils of the Crown of Thorns infested its body, but it was struggling to fight back.

"Hey," I said, and I reached out and touched the side of the Eva's head. "I want you to know something, Nozomi: I don't know anyone who's tried as hard as you—to understand people, to understand herself. It's not fair that didn't make you happy."

The Eva's eyes drifted off me. They blinked one at a time, staring at the ceiling of the Geofront.

I sat down in the dirt, just in front of the Eva's eyes. "But you know something?" I said. "You can change. You have changed. You started changing as soon as you dared to hope for something more with your sister. You changed when you forgave me for being scared and selfish. Let me be there for you now. Let your sister be there for you now. We can do this—together. I believe that."

The Eva's head turned away from me. There was a clicking on my radio. "Ikari," said Nozomi, her voice gravelly and hoarse, "stop trying so hard. Don't patronize me. There's no point."

The Eva glowed with energy. The force of it pushed back against me with a wave of nausea. My skin felt soft and gooey.

"No, Nozomi!" I scrambled to my feet and pulled on its armor. "Nozomi!"

"Nozomi Horaki!" The stranger in the white hood called to the Evangelion. The image of her hovered above the blue grass of the Geofront. Her voice echoed off the walls for all to hear.

But she was no woman—no stranger to me anymore, nor to Ayanami or mankind. In the form of a woman with a satin hood covering her eyes, Eisheth called to Nozomi and challenged her on what was to come.

"Nozomi Horaki," Eisheth said again, commanding the Eva's attention, "you have an opportunity here. You have sisters and friends who love you. They would willingly suffer to see you be happy, for that would make them happy, too."

My radio crackled. "You're not…doing a good job of convincing me here," said Nozomi, her voice gravely and weak.

Eisheth smiled knowingly. "Life is unfair that way, sometimes, but I think you can make them happier than it would hurt them to try. I think you can change." Eisheth turned her head toward me. "That is, if you dare to hope for it." She faced the Eva again. "I ask you not to be so stubborn that you don't even try."

"Who are you to tell me what to do?" Nozomi snapped.

The figure in the satin hood bowed her head. "I'm no one," she said at last. "I'm not the person I used to be." Her head rose, meeting the tired gaze of the Eva. "But I know what it means to doubt, to feel that nothing you do will matter, that nothing you change will stick. Maybe it won't, but perhaps it's time to let fate decide that instead of taking it into our own hands. You know, there's at least one person who wants you to keep trying." The stranger nodded at me. "Isn't she listening?"

"Asuka," I said over the radio, "is Horaki there?"

"I'm here, Ikari." Horaki's voice was halting but firm in volume and tone. "I've been listening. I don't know who that person is that was talking, but she's right. Nozomi, Sister and I are still here. We're still hoping you'll find your way home. We want to see you safe, and—" Her voice wavered. "No, _I_ want to see you safe. We are not done talking. We only just started, I think. We have a lot to talk about—game sprites and landscapes and all that. And how we've hurt each other. I think we should talk about that, too. I'm counting on you to come back, so we _can_ talk about that, Nozomi." Horaki's voice grew bolder. "Promise me that, all right? Nozomi?"

"Don't be an idiot, Hikari," said Nozomi, her voice fading. "I can't promise you anything."

"Yes you can," said Horaki. "You absolutely can. Maybe you won't be able to keep it, but I won't blame you for that. I know you're stubborn, Nozomi. You're so stubborn sometimes you won't even listen to me, but you don't listen to people who tell you to quit. You're ingenious with your artwork, so much so that I don't even really understand it. You treat people so rudely sometimes, but I know you try so hard not to hurt people. I don't know how all of that coexists in the same person. It's puzzling to me, and that used to bother me a lot, but it doesn't bother me as much anymore. Do you know why, Nozomi?"

Silence. The stranger and I looked at one another. She held up a hand, and I took my finger off the transmit switch on my radio.

"It doesn't bother me as much because I realized it puzzles you, too," Horaki said at last. "I remember what you told me that day—when you said you wanted to pilot the Eva again, in spite of everything. You needed a new reason because the old one wasn't good enough. Maybe it wasn't, but _you were_ , Nozomi. You were good enough. You don't need to prove to me you can change. You don't need to prove to me you can feel. I've seen it in how you look. I've felt it from the wall you used to put between us. I've imagined it from the sketches you spend so much time on. There's nothing wrong with your heart, Nozomi. It might be imperfect, but we all are."

What I would've given to have been there—to have stood beside Horaki as she poured her soul into the microphone. I could only hope Asuka was there beside her, offering a shoulder to lean on.

"So forget all of that," Horaki concluded. "Forget all of that and stop worrying. Forget it and come home to us. Nozomi, I—I want to see you again."

The Geofront sat unnaturally still for a moment. SDF personnel kept Keel Lorenz under watch, with his hands and ankles bound by plastic ties. The ocean waves chopped outside under a moderate wind. The Disc Angel circled the Black Moon, zipping by the breach every-so-often; its light cast long shadows on the interior.

And the Crown of Thorns withered. The vines and tendrils dried up and dessicated. The Eva snapped those vines in two, climbed to its feet, and roared!

The sound pushed me back, but when it was over, I felt comfortable and still. The pressure of the anti-AT field diminished. I poked at my arm; my skin felt firm again.

"Ikari, Soryu," said Nozomi on the radio, "I'm over this. Can we get outta here? I'd like to see my sisters, and we've got some catching up to do."

I glanced back at Eisheth, who shot me the proud smile of a mother.

And behind her, Ayanami smiled, too.

"Shinji," said Asuka over the radio, "you want to give the order?"

"Thanks," I said, weeping, and I faced the breach in the Geofront. The sun had risen, and the gap opened up to clear blue sky. "Nozomi," I said, "let's go home."

#

I'd expected the end of the war to be cleaner somehow.

With our mission over and Unit-14 deactivated, the day had been won, but our work was far from finished. The allied forces rounded up the remnants of Seele, shackled them, and loaded them onto the helicopters for transport back to the fleet.

The rest of us followed in waves, but I stayed behind for some time. Getting Unit-14 out of the Geofront would prove difficult—most easily done with it under its own power, but the creature was too worn out and damaged to do that right away. Instead, a team of German and American technicians flew in and force-extracted the entry plug. Nozomi was released into the care of MSDF medical staff. She was a mess: her hair was sticky and clumped, and there were pressure wounds around her wrists and ankles. It would be some time before she was 100% again, but even as the medics started pumping fluids into her, she had the presence of mind to speak to me.

"Thanks, Ikari," she said, smiling weakly. "Thanks for being here."

I crouched down beside her in the medical helicopter. It was getting close to noon local time, and the upper sections of the Geofront had begun casting shadows over the beachhead—the gash we'd managed to carve out from the Geofront's hull and the surrounding landing area. Even so, the beachhead was brighter than the rest of the interior, and that glow cast half of Nozomi's face in light. I smiled at her, and I said,

"I'm glad I was here. I'm glad I met you. I'm glad—so glad—that I could be here and see the moment you didn't have to be a pilot anymore."

"Me, too." She looked out the side of the helicopter, to the horizon, the open water, and the red sea. "I almost fucked it up, but I guess it turned out all right."

I laughed, and I patted her on the head—even though she tried to pull away from it.

"You serious right now?" she said, unable to run away from my touch. "I'll get you back for this."

"I know," I said, continuing to pat her head. "You'll get me back a thousand times worse than this, but you know what? I think it's worth it."

Nozomi sighed, and she stopped resisting, laying her head back on the stretcher. "I've taught you too well," she said.

"You have."

And we both laughed at that.

We carried on for a little while longer, but eventually, the medics wanted her to get some rest. They gave her a sedative, and we rode together back to the international fleet.

With the helicopter carrier _Ise_ destroyed, the Japanese command had relocated to _Makinami_. It was a makeshift operation in every way: the ship was becoming crowded with rescued survivors. I didn't know the ship at all, so I would get lost at almost every turn, and while the MSDF members were polite enough to show me the way, it was still an unsettling experience.

The crew converted one of the mess halls into a triage center and temporary shelter. Despite the crowded conditions, spirits were high. As new survivors were sent our way, there were cheers and hearty yells all around. If alcohol had been allowed aboard ship, I'm sure the MSDF members would've gone through a few rounds by that point. The war had been won; the Angels had stood down. Seele were in irons.

All that was true, yet it didn't feel like a victory for me just yet. With all those people crammed into one place, lacking a view of the outside, it felt like we had just kept on going. The difference from before and after didn't really resonate in my bones.

Not until Misato walked into the mess hall.

"Brothers and sisters," she cried, "the Angels' attacks are over. The enemy have surrendered. The Earth is ours and ours alone once again. What do we say?"

"Banzai!" cried the survivors. "Banzai! Banzai!"

Misato pumped her fist with them, and the whole room hollered, cheered, and broke into applause.

For the first time that morning, I felt I could cheer with them.

#

The celebrations continued as we returned to Japan. There was a parade in port as we disembarked. Banners hung outside the airfield where we left for Tokyo-2. Farmers carved out victory messages in their fields.

But once that groundswell of relief ebbed away, we went back to work. There were still great challenges for humanity, for a world to rebuild after the Second Angel War. The Evangelion would have no place in a world without Angels to fight. It was quickly agreed, among the international community, that all three units would be sealed away, reserved only for use against threats to all mankind.

The Black Moon remained over the Indian Ocean while Eisheth's children, and the children of the other giants, repaired its superstructure. After a few months, it rose from its resting place over the ocean, disappearing to the stars. Eisheth would guide the Black Moon back to the worlds of the other giants. Humanity was not a failure; all of their children should be given a chance to succeed. She would see to it.

And in the meantime, a small number of her children would stay behind with us, help restore civilization, and build relations for the future.

Project Manoah's mission had been completed, and it soon came time for Misato's people to abandon the base. A mountain bunker was too valuable to keep for just office space. The government had other ideas. Still, it was strange to clean my stuff out of my office and quarters. Though it'd only been a few months, I'd spent a lifetime there—met people I wouldn't have had a chance to meet, found friends I would've lost, and more. I'd first set foot in the mountain as a very different person. To leave it meant leaving that person behind, too. It wasn't a bad thing, but it was a moment worth considering—worth remembering.

And I remember, that last night on Manoah Base, I ran into Misato as she was cleaning out her office, too. Misato had been assigned to an advisory council that would manage relations with Eisheth's children—the small group of them that the world had agreed could remain. I worried that would mean she would be bored—it was far from the thrill of managing an Eva program—but Misato didn't mind it one bit.

"I've had enough adventures and thrills for a lifetime, I think," she said to me as we carried boxes back to the train.

"No you haven't," I said.

"Hah!" she said, laughing. "No, I haven't. But maybe it'd be nice to have thrills and all that without the fate of the world riding on the line."

And she found that, in due time. Misato found a car enthusiast and racing club in town to join, and every so often, she would invite me to attend a meeting, to have a heart attack as I watched her go three cars wide through racetrack turns built for two, and to meet people. Despite her busy schedule, Misato always found time for her weekends with the club, and she took care to introduce me to the other members. Anytime someone new would come along, she'd take them aside with me and say, "Do you know my son?" And if they gave her a confused look, she would just repeat it until they understood.

With the project over, it was time to look ahead. Nozomi went back to school full-time, with most of her peers none the wiser that she'd been the Eva pilot. Asuka returned to her doctoral studies. Misato had her duties.

As for me, I'd spent two years in hiding, helping people in anonymity, but going back to that was impossible. The government wanted me involved more than ever—to serve as a liaison with Eisheth's children, say, or for public information campaigns about the aliens and the new order. Again and again I said _no_ , though. They had their ideas about what I would do for them going forward—just as my father had done before them. It was high time, I felt, that I would be the one to choose my path. I'd see that people got along with one another, and with our newly discovered brothers and sisters, my own way.

After some thought, I decided the best way to do that was to go back to school, too.

Asuka had a tremendous amount of fun with this idea. Even if it was just a cram school to get me ready for high school entrance exams, the thought of sending me out with a school bag of notebooks, pencils, and other supplies delighted her to no end. I had to draw the line at her trying to foist a shiny red backpack upon me, though.

"You're not really embracing the spirit of being a student," she chided me. I assume it was a Western thing. The thought of going into a school setting so flashy—she tried to give me a rainbow-colored ruler—was unsettling to me, but Asuka had never been the type to fear the impression she made on people, so long as _she_ was in full control over it.

"You mean I can't go there in a white shirt and black pants—you know, something that won't stand out?" I asked her.

"Not a chance. Everybody knows who you are. There's nothing that won't stand out about that, no matter what you wear. Everybody who lived through these past two years—they're going to remember you."

Asuka took the price tag off a binder and packed it away for me. Our living room was filling up with school supplies in various bags, boxes, and bins.

"They're going to remember you, too," I insisted.

She froze me with a knowing look. "They're not. They should, but they won't." She shrugged. "That's just how it is."

Maybe it bothered her a little, but I resolved to do everything I could to take those worries away. Asuka would be remembered, too. If nothing else, I would remember her. The world _should_ remember her. Though Nozomi had piloted the Eva, I really feel that we won—that we averted Fourth Impact—because of people like Asuka. Asuka was an intense person. She hurt me sometimes, but she changed. She turned her intensity toward helping build things with people, toward improving herself. And she did that.

The world could use more people like Asuka—and I couldn't stand to be without her. That's why, as Asuka put her stamp of approval on my notebooks for cram school, I left a small, black felt box on the kitchen counter. It would only take her a couple hours to find it. As for her answer, well, she insisted on having me right then and there. For the future, we talked about some dates. We could wait until the first day we were both 18, or we could hold out for graduations—mine from high school, hers from graduate school—and celebrate coming into adulthood with each other. We didn't decide on that night, but we had options, and we would long enjoy talking about them.

The next day, I went to school again for the first time in two years. It was a strange sensation: most of the kids were younger than me. I'd never been particularly tall, but I was taller than a lot of them, and that made me stand out all the more. I hesitated outside the building, looking up at the place where I'd shape the course of my life, and a few of the students caught me there.

"Hey," one of them said, "aren't you that boy?"

I laughed, bowing my head for a moment, and I met the student's eye. "My name is Shinji Ikari. I'm going to cram school with you. I hope we'll get along."

The first student, a boy, seemed taken aback by my greeting, but one of his friends thought better of the situation.

"We hope so, too, Ikari," said the boy's friend. "My name's Kaizaki. This is Inumata and Emiya. Let us know if there's anything we can help you with, all right?"

I nodded in thanks. "Same to you: if there are any stories you want to hear, I might be able to spare a few minutes of my time."

The boys' faces lit up at that, and the second boy, Kaizaki, motioned for me to follow them inside. I looked back at the street, though, and I hesitated:

"Sorry," I said, "I'll catch up in a second."

The three headed in and upstairs, but I went back toward the street. Someone was there, watching me, and her red eyes compelled me to meet her. The ghost of Rei Ayanami stood on the sidewalk and smiled.

"Congratulations," she said. "They know your name now."

I laughed. "I guess they do."

We shared a smile at that, but for me, it was short-lived. The specter of Ayanami was clearly unreal: she was semi-transparent, exuding an unearthly glow. She could never really be there because she was nowhere at all.

And yet, thanks to some strange miracle, I was able to take her by the hand and feel that she was alive—even though she was not.

"Ayanami…" That was all I could manage to say.

"Don't worry about me, Ikari," she said. "I am here. I will always be here to watch over you."

"Always?" I said, and I shook my head.

"I look forward to it," she said, and she squeezed my hand tighter.

"And if she gets any funny ideas," said another voice, "we'll be here to keep her in line."

Eisheth—she was there, too. In the form of the hooded stranger, with sleeves long enough to hide her hands and a satin face covering that obscured her eyes, she watched from a few meters down the road, and she was not alone, either. Kaworu stood beside her, and the other four progenitors—dressed like Eisheth—watched from a little further down the road.

"I think I'll be the one keeping you in line," said Ayanami, smiling slightly.

Eisheth bowed her head at that, and she faced me. "Take care, Shinji. Lilith and I will be watching, but you should help yourself, too."

I nodded. "I know. And thank you."

A chime went off in the building. The time for cram school was near. I let Ayanami go at the front of the building, and she watched me—as she always had.

I pulled the cram school door open and stepped inside, and though the hours were hard and lectures difficult to get used to again, for the first day at least, I didn't mind it one bit.

 **The End**

To those of you who read _The Coming of the First Ones_ , I hope this conclusion brings some closure that was long overdue. To new readers, I hope that this memoir of Shinji Ikari inspires you go out there, be willing to change yourself, and approach the future without fear.

My profound thanks to readers and reviewers: Ranma-sensei, Strypgia, Gryphon, FourDreadWraiths, Kitebroken, and Dealer on Sufficient Velocity; Susano on Sufficient Velocity for thought-provoking conversations about this piece and Eva canon; HaterOfNone and Malevolent Dark Reflection on FFN.

I don't know when, or if, I will write another _Evangelion_ fanfiction. For now, I plan to write an original piece called _The Parallel Murders_. But plans change, and paths that once seemed divergent can cross again when you least expect them to. So for now, I can say only this:

Until next time.

-Muphrid

Written for the second draft as published on Sufficient Velocity. Written 2017 March 11, published March 16.

Be at peace, friends: Eisheth and Lilith are watching, and if humanity stumbles again, they will be there—to offer a hand, should we be resolute enough to take it.


End file.
